


don't speak (i came to bang)

by grue



Series: the blood, love, and rhetoric school [2]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Community: tfa_kink, Crack, Curtain Fic, Evil Space Boyfriends, First Time, Guerrilla Warfare, Hurt/Comfort, Injured Hux, M/M, Magical Healing Cock, Snoke Ships It, Snoke's euphemisms for masturbation, Snoke's euphemisms for penis, Virgin Kylo Ren, Wartime, eternal struggle between love and duty, heartfelt romance, nonchalant gore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-12
Updated: 2016-07-24
Packaged: 2018-07-14 14:38:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 22,479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7176020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grue/pseuds/grue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Eyes up here, Ren," Hux snaps, then he notices something happening in Ren's wader things and becomes alarmed. "Did you stick a bloody torch down your trousers?"</p><p>Ren blinks, looks down to check. "No, that's the Force."</p><p>(Sequel to <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/6856006">i'm a doctor today, i'm curing viewers by thousands</a>. Yes, really.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. i want you soo hard

**Author's Note:**

> _I want you so hard, I want you so good_  
>  _but can you trust me? yes, you know you could_  
>  \- I Want You Soo Hard, Eagles of Death Metal

Ten mass squadrons of elite Stormtroopers lie dead across this field between Hux and the shuttle back to the Finalizer. One whole division, wiped out in less than an hour.

Broken parts of trooper armour are strewn in the mud, crunch under Hux's boots as he travels from one trench dugout to the next. In his right hand he carries his blaster rifle, glove off so his fingerprint can be read. With his left hand he holds his insides in, because there aren't any bandages, but his skin and muscle isn't there anymore either.

He jerks his chin at the squad leader from the DV division. The trooper nods back, signals the troopers following him to retreat, and they scatter back in the direction Hux just came from.

"Sir, your wounds," TF-8720 says, crouched down in the trench. She's still working on the blasted cannon, pillaging parts to replace the burnt out ones from their sudden surplus of blasters that have no working fingers to pull on the triggers.

"I will hold this position and these innards in all at once, trooper," he barks. Coughs. Feels the tattered edges of his abdomen contort and contract under his bare fingers. Both of his sleeves are soaked through with his own blood, happened before he found his blaster again and started to use just one hand to hold himself together.

"Attend to your task," he commands. She ducks her head immediately, burned copper of her curly hair shining brutal in this foggy sunlight.

Another volley of blaster fire from the Resistance side. Shouts from both ends, Hux drops to his knees and jacknifes forward so his face is near the mud and the toes of his boots still have traction in the mud. He'll have to shove himself up again using his blaster hand, there's no use for it.

He breathes in, breathes out. Count of four in both directions. The whine of the blasters die down, tracers speed overhead and the noise dies. More moaning joins into the wounded fray. He grits his teeth and tenses his legs to ready for the agony of getting back up.

A hand falls to the collar of his greatcoat. The same hand pulls him back up to a stand. This hand belongs to Lord Kylo Ren, lightsabre held powered off and to the side, helmet on, blood-darkened patches splattered against the black of his robes.

"I'm here to save the day," Ren says, serious as the grave. Hux rolls his eyes, shakes off the steadying hand against the back of his neck, staggers a step away.

"Yes, yes. Thank you for _finally_ supplying some relief. If you could use that force magic of yours to turn the tide of the battle, the First Order would be greatly appreciative."

Ren raises his lightsabre aloft, thumb ready at the switch; then he pauses, tilts his head at Hux.

Hux stands ready to Ren's bloodthirsty wail, or whatever it is he likes to do before charging into battle, but the lightsabre remains off over Ren's head and still the man doesn't move.

"Don't you have somewhere to be?" Hux snaps right before he gives in to the urge to fidget.

"Your wounds, General. They're life threatening."

Hux spreads his fingers across his stomach as if to hide the extensiveness of the tear from Ren's prying eyes. "You've seen worse and lived, so I don't see how any of this concerns you."

"Sir, a medroid is on its way here," TF-8720 calls from her work in the trench. Just the top of her head is visible as she peers over the edge at them. "The First Order sent reinforcements regarding the ambush."

Hux nods his head, waves his blaster-hand at her. "Thank you for the update, soldier. Keep the propaganda channel open and get back to work."

Ren's hand lands heavy on Hux's shoulder and spins him with embarrassing ease around so they're facing each other. Hux finds himself with his face a mere two inches away from a gore-splattered helmet. He clenches his teeth and wills himself to not vomit. Not because he thinks Ren doesn't deserve it, but because it would be unseemly.

"I will keep you alive," Ren declares. Still holding Hux's shoulder, he pushes forward, making Hux walk backwards, until they reach the edge of a trench.

Hux drops his blaster and grabs at the arm Ren has on him; he squeezes in warning.

"A medroid is on its way, I have bloody pressure on it, just go kill the Rebel Scum and I'll be _fine_ ," he hisses.

Ren lets go of him, finally, but it's not to run off. He calmly tucks his lightsabre into some pocket of his robes and begins to remove his belt.

"Ren, for the love of all things chaotic and obscene, what are you doing?" Hux snarls. He wobbles in place, it makes him angry.

He solemnly hands his belt to Hux, who takes it automatically and immediately wonders why he bothered.

"You'll die if I don't do this," Ren says as he begins to tug his robes loose.

Hux stands there, stunned, holding Ren's belt in one hand and his insides with the other. Then it registers that Ren's _pubic hair_ is on display over some glowing beacon of light and Hux finally snaps, he goes blank, it's all a blur.

He whips the belt around Ren's neck, releases his middle to grab the other end, and heaves to the side. Ren flails, fly open and weird light in his pants doing a strobe effect, then he falls past Hux into the trench next to them.

Hux releases the belt before he can be pulled in too. Ren lands with a crash and splat, right into the pooled mud at the bottom. He staggers back and away before the Force User revives, clutches at his stomach again, tries to shove in a bit of intestine trying to poke out and say hallo to the world.

"Sir!" TF-8720 shouts, grabs his arm. She's covered in mud, smells like burnt circuitry. "The cannon will fire soon, but a medroid is here. You need attention!"

She looks doubtfully at the trench where Ren is slumped. "Does he need attention too?"

Hux comes back to himself, swallows down bile, allows the stormtrooper to lead him by the arm to the medroid. He snarls, "Absolutely _not_ ," and jerks his chin at the refreshed troopers following the droid.

The squad leader nods back at him, leads her men into the fray. No one looks down into the trench where Ren is, and Hux hurries away with the droid and TF-8720 before he can find out if the man is still alive or not.

. . .

A full cycle in the bacta tank gets Hux right as rain, technically. There's a fresh scar cutting across his abdomen that will never heal. He wasn't terribly defined before, officer hours trump hours in the gymnasium after all, but with the protruding of the right side of his pelvic bone as the origin point drifting up a y axis to the x coordinate across the Cartesian plane of his stomach, he almost looks rugged.

Not like he's going to show anyone this newfound crash to his vanity. He's supposed to be an officer, directing the battlefield from a place on high and remaining pristine for the duration. Instead he's running supply runs to keep the war effort going and only seeing action when the Resistance bloody well _ambushes_ them, and that action leaves him with a splash of acid residue across his stomach that luckily ran out of steam before it hit intestinal lining.

The Resistance calls that weapon anti-aircraft and anti-war machine. They likely don't care what happens to the soldiers _inside_ said machines, Hux thinks in a rather cynical tone. And they certainly could give a shit about whoever is caught in the blast outside the machine, either.

He rubs at the new and tight skin with one hand under his shirt and uses his free hand to lever off the casing of a fuel cell with aid of a hydrodriver. The engines are quiet tonight, no one wants to be jovial in the face of such an extreme defeat, and the mechanics are welcoming the extra hands now that they're at a diminished staff. They won't gossip too much about the Commanding Officer who likes to tinker, and in exchange he won't dump them on the nearest lava-covered planet when he's next in a rage.

Besides. Ren doesn't come down here. Allergic to the smell of oil or something, Hux wasn't fully paying attention when the subject came up.

The fuel cell is burnt out and dried to a husk, but the wiring is still good. Hux's chosen task for today is to strip as many usable parts from these things and order them in the boxes as he goes, so as to leave them organised and useful for the mechanics in the future.

He pokes at one of the lumpy webbing bits inside the case with the point of his hydrodriver and chews on the inside of his cheek. If he hadn't been raise to the military, he likes to think he would have gone into engineering. Designing buildings and bridges and super star destroyers. And massive planets that eat suns and shit out a nuclear tonnage of weaponised power.

Wait, he did the last item. But he had to delegate _so much_ that it wasn't nearly as satisfying as it should have been.

Something sparks inside the cell at his prodding. He stops cold, gently lifts the tool away from the casing, hisses out a curse that gets the attention from the nearest mechanic, a full three metres away over at the next workstation.

Then the cell explodes in a great big plume of acid and dust, right into Hux's face.

. . .

Hux sulks in medical while the medroid repairs the right side of his face with a narco-mist applicator. The skin stopped oozing pus an hour ago, so now they can seal it up and bandage it until everything regrows.

"There there, deary," The droid chirps, switches the applicator off. "Let that set and we'll get you bandaged, all right?"

Hux glares at the green-tinted piece of shit. Whoever turned on the nurturing instincts algorithm will be demoted and assigned to sanitation when he gets out of here.

The double doors sweep open to let Ren stomp in. He's got his outer layer of robes off, helmet nowhere to be seen, and his face is twisted like he's upset about something.

Hux instinctively tenses. If he sets medical on fire again, he doesn't want to be in here as it happens.

"You need to hold still while I aim, okay," Ren says. His hand goes to his belt, the other holds out like he's trying to _placate_ Hux or something. "Can you do that?"

Hux narrows his eyes, then winces. "If you revisit the insanity from two cycles ago I will resource a scalpel from the surgeon's theatre and castrate you," he says, as evenly as he can manage.

Ren stops taking off his belt, the thing open and partly pulled free from the loops on his wader trousers thing. His shoulders sag. "It's a Force thing, it's not insanity!"

"Oh, naturally. Fucking the pain away is always a good idea, so glad the Force thought of it." Hux would sneer, but that would hurt his face also. The entire right side of the epidermis was eaten away by antiquated acid in moments, only the quick thinking of one of the mechanics who dumped a container full of blue milk on his head saved him from having his skull eaten away and his _brain_ exposed.

He is, of course, quite cranky about the whole affair. "Are you on something? Is that what this is? Some hedonistic prolonged orgiastic ritual you're blaming on the Force now?"

"I can access the healing side of the Dark Side," Ren says. He leans forward, eager, the fly on his trousers slide an inch down from the movement. "I have to use a part of my body that isn't desecrated by destruction, though."

Hux takes that in, considers it, then nods. "Right. You're a virgin, and rather than partake in bought flesh on one of the many Outer Rim planets we deal with on a regular basis, you'd rather attack _me_ when I'm bleeding to take care of it. Brilliant."

Ren's mouth twists into something cruel, possibly a bit upset. "You're not bleeding now and it'd work."

"Oh, quite," Hux concedes. "But you're not objecting to the accusation of virginity."

"I don't need to be a virgin! I just can't have used my purity conduit for destructive purposes!"

Hux stares at Ren and uses every ounce of willpower and dignity he has left in him to not gape like a moron. " _Purity Conduit?_ "

Ren appears to not have heard him. He's staring right at Hux's exposed neck from where his uniform tunic has been pulled away by the droid for a vitals scan. "With the passion of the Dark Side and the Repairing Properties of the Light Side, I can heal any wound, even if the subject is at the brink of death!"

"Eyes up here, Ren," Hux snaps, then he notices something happening in Ren's wader things and becomes alarmed. "Did you stick a bloody torch down your trousers?"

Ren blinks, looks down to check. "No, that's the Force."

Hux gives up. He places one hand over his eyes, winces at the pain from the ruined side of his face but doesn't back down. He has to hide _somehow_ from this surreal episode.

"I cannot believe you, I honestly cannot believe you're this vulgar and inane," he seethes.

"It's not inane! Why do you want to feel this pain, I could _fix_ it!"

Hux drops his hand, tries to ignore the pulsing deep red light glowing from the crotch of Ren's trousers. "Get out."

Ren looks stricken. "But Hux--"

"Get _out_!" he roars, points at the door. Two medroids beep and rush into the room at the noise, begin to fuss over him.

Ren backs away and through the door. He points at Hux, glares.

"I'll be back!"

"No you bloody won't!" Hux yells back at him, then the doors slide closed with Ren on the other side of them and he's free to have his fit in peace.

. . .

Snoke calls an abrupt audience the afternoon after Hux is allowed to take off the bandages from his face. The regrown skin is tight and itches, drives Hux mad, but he remains stoic when he meets Ren outside the door to the chamber.

Ren's shoulders are slightly hunched. When paired with the hulk of his armour and the emotionless of his helmet, he comes across as a gargoyle escaped from a Core World theatre production.

Hux is very suspicious about gargoyle Ren's demeanour. No reason, just instinct. And instinct is what he'll blame this feeling of dread coiling in the pit of his stomach on.

Snoke is already beamed into the chamber when they enter side-by-side. The massive force user has his fingers up and pressed against his thin lips, his gaze considering.

"I see you are in the midst of a long line of injuries, General."

"Only two, Supreme Leader." Hux bows his head.

Snoke leans forward in his chair, peers myopically at Hux.

"Indeed."

He gestures at Ren, who stands straighter and tilts his head back, chin of the helmet tipping precariously. "Report on the movements of our enemies, Ren."

Hux is starting to feel quite alarmed. More and more by the second, in fact. Ren rattles off planets they found traces of Resistance meddling on as they scoped it out for resources, the dim blip of unregistered ships caught on their ruined supply run trawlers, and then he gets to the ambush on Sigma Delta 10.

"They are using their Force Users to shield them, Master. They destroyed two squads of troopers before I managed to get onto the planet and another six gone before I could stop them."

"Ten mass squads," Hux corrects distantly. He's staring off into space and trying to figure out if the Supreme Leader is threatening him with another injury, not paying proper attention.

"What was that, General?" Snoke asks, sharp.

"Ten mass squads lost before Lord Ren could put a stop to it, Supreme Leader," Hux says. Squares his shoulders. Resolutely ignores the way Ren's shoulders have gone back into a hunched position. "One whole division, sir."

Snoke hums. Tilts his head. "And you say your supplies are being ransacked by the Resistance?"

Hux's jaw clenches of its own accord. "Yes, sir. They apparently have the intelligence to know the Finalizer's route, so they take out whichever shipment is furthest from us at any time."

"And are your injuries interfering with your own response time, General?" Snoke asks. Smiles slowly. Tilts his head to one side. "What when you are refusing to make use of other options."

Hux really doesn't like it when Snoke smiles. It makes the hairs at the back of his neck stand up. And he is absolutely certain at this time that he's being threatened, so all he manages is to swallow loudly and say, "Sir?"

"Perhaps you would be more comfortable with the avenues open to you if you were to partake of some... research?"

Hux nods, slow. "I am always open to research, Sir. On what topic would you suggest?"

Snoke's smile gets wider. He leans back in his throne, makes a dismissive gesture towards Ren.

"Report to me when you finally get a shipment. Not a moment sooner, Ren."

Ren's shoulders are hunched so high they graze the bottom edge of his helmet.

"Yes, sir."

A faint popping of a circuit switching off, and Snoke vanishes from the holochamber. The atmosphere shimmers and retakes the dimensions and appearance of a rather large conference room instead of some cavernous abode.

Hux slowly turns to face Ren. The Knight persists in staring straight ahead.

"Was he talking about--"

"I asked for guidance," Ren interrupts.

Hux will not be deterred. "Guidance about your--"

"It's Force related."

Hux stares at him in abject, horrified wonder.

. . .

A charred and smoking TIE fighter pilot wobbles in place as she gives her report to Hux, direct and in person on the Bridge. Hux surreptitiously leans to the left while Phasma stands just to the right, just in case the woman finally gives in to her injuries and topples over.

He hasn't a clue what they'll do if she falls backwards. Both of them will lunge at her, he supposes.

"X-Wings and Corellian Freighters with upgraded cannons," GO-6660 slurs. Her helmet has long fallen from her arms to the floor. Petty Officer Hnung holds it gently, stands two steps back and to the left of Phasma. "The trawler held for a while, sir. But the shields can't take that much barrage. That much barrage was _bad_."

Hux clenches his jaw. Damn Hosnian remnants are funding these attacks, if the freighters are involved. He really wishes he'd been more adamant about only destroying the Senate planet when Starkiller was primed. At the very least his head wouldn't hurt as much right now. Mainly because Snoke would have killed him for insubordination.

"You did well, Pilot," Hux says. He inclines his head, tries to meet the concussed vision of the much smaller woman. "Your squad's loss is not in vein, and I commend your quick thinking in such a dire situation."

GO-6660 begins to cry. Big heaping sobs that run ugly down her face. Hux jerks his head at Petty Officer Hnung, steps back so the other woman can begin to escort the pilot to the closest branch of medical. The gunner from the same TIE is already there ensconced in bacta, a last ditch attempt to salvage his life and hopefully three of the four ruined limbs he now possesses.

"What's the Order's line on this trend?" Phasma asks, quietly. Her helmet came off as soon as the pilot was brought in, she fiddles with the edges of it with her eyes downcast.

Hux shakes his head. He doesn't have an answer for her.

Phasma sighs and replaces her helmet. Another officer approaches Hux, shoulders meek and eyes darting around before he comes to attention and salutes.

Hux waves the Officer at ease. His uniform marks him as a mere Petty Officer, but the way the man clutches at his datapad, Hux assumes ambitions are at play.

The officer coughs into the datapad. Hux glances at Phasma, who is back to being stoic in her full-helmeted glory.

"Sir, I'm Roget from down on deck four," the Petty Officer begins, "And Sir, Lord Ren has ordered something called 'pheromone treatment'. He also put in a for a case of self-adhering bandages and a set of educational holorecords of suspicious origin that appear to be about vivisection."

Hux wills himself to not react.

"Is there a point here, Petty Officer?"

Roget's mouth drops open to gape at him. "Uh, Sir. The lads down in Requisitions are just wondering if this is Force Business, sir."

He pretends to mull this over. "Hmm. Yes."

Phasma shifts her weight from one foot to the other, cants her helmeted head to the side presumably to stare at him in his disgrace.

"Yes, it is Force Business, sir? Or yes, you heard the Petty Officer?"

Hux once again wills himself to not react. He doesn't know if he's winning or losing this game of impassivity he's playing, but he'll be damned if he concedes defeat.

"Yes," he says, steps away from the Officer and Phasma in favour of peering over the shoulder of an officer running the RADAR screen.

A murmur of Phasma's vocoder sends the Petty Officer packing, then she clunks away to her side of the bridge for the shift. Hux's shoulders slowly relax; not completely, but enough. A headache is throbbing behind his left eye. He is not pleased.

But then again, neither is the officer manning the RADAR station who now has a Commanding Officer peering over his shoulder.

. . .

Hux's face stops itching the morning that they get a supplemental shipment of cargo from the Order. To celebrate his newfound freedom from the terrors of having to wear mittens to bed so he doesn't claw off his own face in his sleep, he attends the unloading of the cargo.

Naturally, a crumbling girder off the cargo shuttle choses to snap and fall onto Hux's left leg in appreciation of his attendance.

Hux manages to not shriek in terror when the thing hits him, though he can't help but become annoyed as stormtroopers mill about wringing their hands while he stretches out his leg as per instructions from the summoned medroid.

"Nothing broken, sir," the medroid drones. It's not the same one he had last time, this one is much more solemn and efficient. "Please rest it to resist strain and further injury. When we have thirty two gallons of bacta free, we can heal the injury."

"I don't need bacta, I need a bloody proximity alarm system," Hux grumbles, allows the closest officer to help him back onto his feet.

Petty Officer Hnung coughs out a laugh, then quickly smooths her face back into passivity with wide eyes and a chewed lip. Hux quirks an eyebrow at her, which she avoids by ducking her head.

"I heard yelling," Ren says. He's standing in front of Hux, how in bloody hell did he get here so quietly? Hux looks around the hold for boxes large enough for Ren to have hidden behind and totally misses Hnung being dismissed so Ren can escort him from the hold.

"This one won't be so easy to heal," Ren says. He's got an arm around Hux's middle, Hux's right arm across his shoulders, and Hux has to fight to not use his free hand to grab at a passing trooper so he can demand saving.

"No worse than the gut slice," Hux says, prim and proper. Then he stumbles and Ren has to drag him for two metres before he gets his feet back under him. Any dignity he may have had this morning has clearly abandoned him in favour of greener pastures. Or a Tarkin.

"I can fix this if you'll consent," Ren says. He drags Hux into an alcove in the hall, a slim door opens to a droid repair bay and he slides them both inside. The door remains open, casting light against the steely death-glares of dormant machinery and riotous bundles of rubber tubing.

Ren releases Hux, then continues, "Take off your pants."

Hux leans against a stack of spider droids made for ventilation work. One of the spindly legs pokes into his side, he doesn't care. "Absolutely not."

Ren turns and bangs his fist into the wall. Judging by the shadows from the ill-placed lighting, the wall is now dented. Ren's hand seems no worse for the wear. He whirls back and looms over Hux to snarl, "You want scientific proof of this?"

Hux absolutely does not hunch his shoulders and rear back, though his lizard brain is screaming in a rather high-pitched fashion for him to do so. He peels his lips back in a snarl to make up for it.

"Purity Conduit leavings are high in protein and thyrotropin-releasing hormone!" Ren says. He gesticulates wildly, which Hux watches with great wariness. "It keeps you awake! It's healthy! And when combined with the Force it heals your wounds!"

Hux blinks. "Are there many Force Users who participated in this case study, or did you just wantonly ejaculate onto injured sentients, I wonder."

Ren freezes, hands held high. He begins to shake, just a little. It's a full-body tremor, and Hux associates it with destroyed consoles.

Lucky him, they're in a room full of fairly expensive droids they have no immediate way to replace.

"The Force is all-powerful!" Ren shouts. A couple of passing stormtroopers run past like death is at their heels. "And when the Force is combined with a purity conduit, it's health benefits are miraculous! It would heal you at death's door!"

Hux shakes his head, looks to the ceiling for possible helpful devices to remove him from this situation of threatened necrophilia. Ren growls and flicks his hand near the back of the room. 

A stack of floor sweeper droids topple over near the back of the room. It creates a great big crash that neither Hux nor Ren pay the slightest bit of attention to.

"Take off your pants or prepare to feed the plants," Ren says, menacingly.

Hux tilts his head to one side. "Did you just rhyme?"

"...no." Ren's helmet-front cuts to the side as he looks away. His shoulders hitch a fraction. Hux narrows his eyes, because he bloody well _did_ rhyme and he knows it.

"What did I say about this _rhyming_ proclivity of yours, Lord Ren?" Hux asks, silky smooth and letting the words slither out between his teeth. He pushes off from the spider droids and staggers the half-step needed to get right up close to Ren.

"I'm not injured right now, you are," Ren mumbles, the vocoder crackling and humming for punctuation, "You can't push me around, I can push you around."

Hux calmly places one hand on the front of Ren's helmet. His hand neatly covers the visor part, his fingers spread across the brow and the top. Then he pushes, gently but firm.

Ren takes a step back, staggers really, right into the wall. Hux releases him and limps elsewhere. Anywhere. _Away_.

. . .

Petty Officer Roget from Requisitions is back. He blocks the door with his wide frame, determined look on his face, a lit datapad clutched in his nervous fingers.

Phasma isn't here to act as Hux's buffer this time, because he's in the men's public lav on deck five and she's... elsewhere.

"Sir, Lord Ren has issued another requisition form."

Hux continues to wash his hands carefully, methodically. He leans his bad hip on the sink to take his weight.

"A commanding officer requisitioning things, fancy that," he says, droll.

Roget is not deterred. He brandishes his ever present datapad at Hux. "Sir, he's ordering certain nebulous items from Coruscant."

Hux carefully dries his hands under the blower. He hates this piece of machinery, does nothing but make noise and make his headache worse. Not that it wasn't already worse; the glare of the lights in this lav is truly atrocious and should be classified as a wartime atrocity. They could hold interrogations in here, they're that bright and menacing.

His stomach has been feeling queasy, which could be lingering effects from the acid burn on his abdomen or radiating nausea from the pain in his head. He's been toying with the idea of stopping at medical to seek something preventative just in case it's that cold that's been running rampant through the Finalizer as of late, but he knows that he won't follow through. Don't want to take away from the needed supplies before their next restock is scheduled, after all.

Petty Officer Roget coughs, sounds a bit uncomfortable. Hux realises he's been standing in front of an inactive blower and staring at a wall for who knows how long. Brilliant. Now he has to devote energy to remembering what this asinine conversation was about.

"Let me guess, a full set of those holovids from Glookar the self-help guru?" he asks, finally.

"No, sir." Roget's face takes on a twinge. "There are no holovids in the order."

Hux tries to step around the Petty Officer, but the man refuses to budge. He'd have to squeeze around him if he wanted to flee, and that is so absolutely below him that he'd sooner strangle the man with a braided rope made from toilet paper than drop so low.

"Are you impeding your Commanding Officer from continuing his duties, Petty Officer?" Hux asks pleasantly enough.

That gets Roget to swallow, at least. Unfortunately, he still doesn't move. "Sir, he ordered instruments."

Hux exhales heavily through his nose. "Of destruction? Then it's Force Business, leave him to it."

Roget shakes his head violently. " _Rectal_ destruction, sir."

"...it's Force Business," Hux desperately insists.

Roget is still shaking his head. It is quite possible he is unable to stop.

"Sir, he's using First Order funds to purchase _instruments_!"

"And I said that it's Force Business and not to be trifled with," Hux snaps. How this man ever got to be a representative of an entire department is beyond Hux, but it is time for this tomfoolery to stop. "Leave it."

The Petty Officer finally shifts to the side, in a despairing sag rather than a genuine deferment to Hux's need to pass. It doesn't matter, he makes use of it anyway.

Hux sweeps from the room, leaving Officer Roget fully traumatised behind him in the lav. The dimmer hallway lights make no difference on the state of the shooting pain behind his eyes, and it irritates him.

. . .

Food poisoning. It wasn't a cold sweeping through the Finalizer, it was bloody food poisoning.

How fresh supplies taken from an unnamed Outer Rim planet on a two day trip to the Finalizer directly can be just rotten enough to poison the total thirty thousand population is beyond Hux's comprehension. He suspects the Resistance is behind it, however. He always suspects the Resistance.

He spends a lot of time seething as each new diminished personnel report comes in to the Bridge, rages internally about underhanded tricks and wishing he still had Starkiller so he could just _kill them_. He'd be acting in mercy, really. No _starvation_. No _mass vomiting_.

Nearly a full cycle after the waves of sickness took a full hold, Phasma turns to him where they're filling in on RADAR and asks, her skin pale and sullen, "Why aren't you puking with the rest of us?"

She sounds resentful, so he tries to be as honest as he can.

"I don't eat when I'm stressed."

Her eyes narrow. "You're always stressed," she croaks, then leaves with great dignity and poise to the nearest trash receptacle to puke for the third time in as many hours.

He finally leaves the Bridge to sleep in his quarters when Phasma is feeling better. He'd nap in a chair to be available, but he needs to escape the wet eyes of all the remaining officers forced to stay on their posts rather than hide in a corner to vomit in peace. He's exhausted, he's gotten only a handful of hours of sleep across the entire four cycles, and he's ready to drop.

The doors to his quarters slides open after the quick biometric scan. He makes to step inside, stops cold, stares.

Ren is sitting on the couch along the far wall, helmet off and staring at his ungloved hands. There appears to be a powerpoint presentation lit on the wallscreen behind him. An animated cartoon sperm with googly eyes wiggles against a pastel wash background covered in a sea of sparkles.

Hux takes all of this in, then waves a hand across the scanner to close the door again, leaving him still in the hall. He breathes heavy through clenched teeth, then goes back the way he came, in the direction of medical.

He'll requisition a cot to nap on. He's only supposed to be out for a couple of hours anyway, it's not a massive inconvenience. Not at all.

. . .

Half staff is fifteen thousand souls languishing in bunks all across the Finalizer. They reached that number last cycle, and Hux is officially now surviving on broth and sheer willpower. He's taken to napping in conference rooms chosen at random, leaving his comm always on, snapping awake at the merest crackle and click that could mean he needs to see to yet another emergency that could very well have been avoided if they hadn't been stricken by the bloody _plague_.

The officers have been hit the worst, incidentally; only a fifth of them are functional enough to fill their posts. Hux cannot help but be paranoid enough to assume that the Resistance wanted it to be that way.

Delta shift ends on the Bridge and Hux staggers away from the Engine Console he's been monitoring, leaves the bridge without so much as a by-your-leave. Mitaka is already there, he knows he's to take charge, so Hux just isn't going to bother with formalities.

There's a conference room on Deck Two that he hasn't crashed in yet and hasn't been scheduled for use since well before the epidemic hit. He forces himself to stand tall in the middle of the turbolift, not lean against the wall, because otherwise he'll pass out right inside the damn thing and won't _that_ be a surprise to the next travelling stormtrooper.

Patrols are thin on this part of the ship. Hux nods acknowledgement to three separate pairs of troopers who salute as he passes, then he turns a corner and has to catch himself on the wall when he stops cold at the sight of Lord Kylo Ren, sans helmet, standing right outside the conference room Hux was heading for.

Ren glares at a passing patrol. They skitter forward quickly, half-arsed salutes at Hux tossed at their own helmets as they flee the area. Hux closes his eyes, counts to ten, then opens them again to see that Ren hasn't moved, is just standing there holding a mug and watching Hux.

Hux sighs, approaches. He's lost the will to force the limp away, so he drags his bad leg and braces himself on the wall as he creeps forward. It's time to call it a day. It's time to just let the Galaxy destroy itself in chaos, he doesn't care anymore.

Ren gestures with one hand at Hux's leg when he comes to a stop a metre away. "You're still injured."

Hux straightens his spine to better glare at Ren eye-to-eye.

"It takes a surplus of bacta to heal food poisoning of such an extreme degree. My injuries are nothing compared to the entire division that collectively vomited until they each suffered from esophageal prolapse."

Ren's face goes slack in wonder, mouth open and eyes glazed. Hux can't stand the sight of it, reminds him of drugs and and shouting mothers.

"What?" he snaps.

"You've reverted to propaganda," Ren says, sounds awed. "It's fascinating."

"I had to do a bloody speech about it on the intranet and you're giving me trouble about fucking _propaganda_?" Hux slaps a hand against the wall, recoils at the sting of it.

Ren's lips quirk. Hux feels a tendril of annoyance at the pleased expression.

"You're also devolving your speech patterns and reactions to irritants," Ren says. "Master said you'd get like this."

Annoyance gives way to alarm. Hux checks around them for eavesdroppers, finds no one being obvious about it, then leans in and gets his face right up into Ren's.

"You've been talking to Snoke about me? _Again_? I'm doing a superlative job in the face of these recent disasters and so have my crew. If you've been going behind my back with trifles, Ren, I don't--"

Ren presses the mug into Hux's hands. Hux automatically takes it, jerks away from Ren's face, snaps his mouth shut hard, with a click.

"I asked the Supreme Leader for guidance, like I always do. Enjoy your naptime."

Ren stoops down to pick his helmet off the floor and shoves it back onto his head as he strides away. A cluster of troopers scatter in all directions to get out of his path.

Hux stands there holding a mug of broth, if his nose is to be believed, watching Ren go. The damn mug is the perfect temperature though his gloves. The steam is soothing where it wafts up to caress his bared throat.

He is now confused to all fucking hell.

. . .

Phasma approaches where Hux is doing sums at a terminal on the Bridge. They're back to three quarters of command staff, with only the worse cases still confined to medical. Incidentally, all of the worse cases are from the shipping monitor technicians, so Hux gets the joy of filling in spreadsheets for hours on end while they recover.

It's better than paging through the missives from the First Order Politicos back in the Core Worlds. Hux has reams of platitudes and false promises saved to his datapad, all sent since the ambush that started this downward spiral. Honestly, after Senator Trib's ripping use of a fishing metaphor in regards to Hux's troopers possibly starving to death if more supplies aren't allotted soon, he's considering going AWOL with the entire ship with the intent to "acquire" a self-sustaining resort planet and letting the First Order choke on it.

Phasma clears her throat before she begins to speak. The crackle of the vocoder makes his head hurt worse, he grits his teeth against it.

"Sir, the Requisitions Department has contacted me."

He doesn't want to know about this. "It's Force Business."

"Sir."

"Orders from the Supreme Leader," he says, types a calculation into the spreadsheet without much thought, clicks frantically though the prompts created from that one little action. "Very hush-hush."

"Sir, he just received a shipment of Bothan laceworks."

The casing of the mouse creaks under his grip. "The Resistance won't know what hit them."

" _Hux_ ," she all but snarls.

He finally leans back from the terminal and presses the heel of one hand to his left eye. He tries to glare up at Phasma with the right eye, fails miserably because of course she has the high ground here, they both know it.

"What do you want me to say?" he absolutely does not groan.

"I want you to do what you've always done; I want you to take him in hand and get him to stop."

Hux nearly flinches.

"I'm not touching him. I never touch him."

Phasma just stands there and waits. Hux can't figure out if her not bringing up how Hux is the only one Ren allows to tend to his medical care now is a good thing or not.

He tries again, "Force business."

Phasma sighs. The vocoder makes the exhale sound highly disapproving. Then she turns and leaves the bridge without waiting to be dismissed.

Hux decides to be magnanimous and not take issue with the breech in protocol. Mainly because he can't deal with much more verbal clobbering today.

. . .

A stealthy Hutt freighter begins to dock in the Finalizer's main loading bay. There are a mass of stormtroopers are already down there waiting at attention, while the recovered Officers all mill on the Bridge watching the procedure on the screens with rapt attention.

Hux doesn't have it in him to order them back to work. He's given in to watching the feed himself, though he tries to be discreet by having the video broadcast soundlessly on his datapad so he can pretend to get work done as he watches.

That middling-sized freighter holds shipments of medicine, food, weapons, ammo, and most importantly, _soap_. It's no wonder the entire staff of approximately thirty thousand is collectively crapping their pants over its appearance.

A scheduled array of beeps sound out from the speakers under the various screens. The entire room breathes a collective sigh of relief. Petty Officer Hnung steps away from her console with a datapad in her hands, which she offers to Hux.

"Manifest to be acknowledged, Sir," she says, teary-eyed.

Hux rips off his righthand glove, shoves it into his pocket, then takes the datapad. There's a new pair of those on board the freighter, he can finally discard these ruined, scuffed things he's had to make do with.

A quick skim shows that the manifest is in order to Hux's best recollection. He presses his thumb over the signature box at the bottom, a soft ping sounds, and the troopers in the cargo hold move en mass to unload, as shown on the screens.

He hands Hnung the datapad back. She inclines her head and returns to her console. The officers begin to cheer and hug each other, someone turns on some jaunty First Order-approved party music. Hux begins to remove his lefthand glove while he rolls his eyes. He'll humour them, but that doesn't mean he's going to join in on the inanity.

Ren comes onto the Bridge just at the officers are onto their fifth "hip hip hooray." He looks about as startled at the display as a man wearing a thickset helmet can ever look as such.

Hux smirks at Ren's obvious discomfort as he sidesteps a droid that came into the Bridge with Ren. His injured leg quakes at the shift in his weight, so he holds out a hand to the nearest console, a shoddy repair job that isn't back in use yet. The empty chair placed before the console bangs into his sore knee, he ends up leaning on the equipment more than he intended and growls.

The rough edge of where he braces himself cuts into his palm. A quick lean away, and he hisses, shakes his hand out automatically, frowns at the blood welling up in the cut. It's a flesh wound, won't even need more than a smear of bacta and some patience, but it's a pisser all the same.

He looks up to see that Ren is on his way to him, one hand out, and Hux can't help it anymore, he snarls and chucks the broken chair at him.

"Don't you start with that again, damnit!" Hux roars. The party music cuts off and the Bridge goes silent.

Ren sweeps to the side, out of the flight path of the chair. He takes another step in advancement and Hux scurries around the console to put the bulk of the obstruction between them.

Ren's vocoder crackles, which is normally enough to put a common soldier in a fit of hysterics. Luckily for Hux, he's no common soldier.

"You're being stubborn," Ren growls. "You're denying yourself more than you're denying me right now."

"No, fairly certain I'm just denying you," Hux snarls back. His hand leaves a smear of blood on the brushed steel of the console, he winces at the unhygenic sight of it.

"You're going to regret this!" Ren shouts. Then with everyone watching he stomps out of the Bridge. The doors remain open in his wake, all the better to let the sounds of destruction tumble down the hall as he gets further away.

All heads are staring at Hux now. Petty Officer Hnung is closest to him, so he whirls on her for convenience's sake. "What?" he snarls.

"Sir, we're just surprised, sir," she stammers. "Normally after you argue a lot you both leave."

Hux stares at her for a moment without comprehension, then it dawns on him. Understanding dawns upon his consciousness like the breaking of a new light in the galaxy, the creation of a new star, the implosion of his brilliant Starkiller.

His officers think he and Ren are fucking.

Oh. Oh, fucking _fantastic_.

"Phasma," he barks, which the Captain languidly tilts her helmeted head back in her chair to side-eye him through the visor. Her troopers are doing the heavy lifting, she knows it, and he's going to have to let her get away with the disrespect _again_ , damnit. "You have the bridge."

He spins on his heels and stalks from the room, hands clasped behind his back and executing perfect military posture. As soon as the doors are closed and he sees there are no troopers about, he abandons the entire farce and starts to run down the hall in the direction of the crashes.

The noises lead him to one of the closed cafeterias. There are droids hurrying around the room trying to clean the mess as Ren makes it, to no great success. Hux watches for a moment, clenches his fists, feels the sharp pain in his palm and hisses in rage. Then he hurriedly wades through the mess directly to Ren.

He grabs Ren by the arm to stop him from kicking over another table and almost falls over himself.

"Will you stop being so bloody-minded?!" he shouts.

Ren stops flailing his arms around now that Hux is holding onto him. He's still quivering with an ill-kept temper tantrum, Hux can feel the thrumming under his hands.

"You glory in this unnecessary suffering of yours," Ren growls, "You glory in it!"

Hux bares his teeth at Ren's stupid helmet. "Like this Dark Side you subscribe to doesn't have a bit of unnecessary suffering of its own? We're in the business of subjugation now, Ren, suffering is an essential part of the work requirements."

"We're getting bacta!"

"What is this perverse focus on bacta?" Hux asks, rolls his eyes. "You don't use it! You wreck important negotiations with your lack of bacta use!"

"You can heal yourself now. No more limping!"

Hux releases Ren's arm, tries to shuffle back without displaying said limp now that it's the topic of discussion. "I won't bother, it's almost gone anyway. Time heals and all that."

Ren laces his fingers together and hooks them around the back of his neck. He looks like he's trying to put himself into a wrestling lock right there in the midst of the eatery's destruction. "I could have healed you at the _start_ ," Ren whines.

Hux crosses his arms and eyes Ren's belt warily.

"I don't find a damn thing you say reassuring at this stage of our shared command, Ren. Especially not anything you might have to say about so-called healing."

Ren releases the stranglehold he has on his own neck and dramatically slumps down onto the lone chair left standing in this part of the room. A herd of droids sweep in from the wall to begin to lever one of the tables back onto its legs.

"I just want to help," Ren says, vocoder whirring noisily. Hux distantly wonders what he could possibly be doing to his voice that would cause that much interference to the mechanism. "Supreme Leader said it was all right when I told him," Ren continue, "Why don't you agree?"

Hux winces at Snoke's title. The last thing he wants to have in a null set together in his head is Snoke and Ren's penis. "Providing insight on why you suddenly have an altruistic streak regarding my welfare might help."

The droids beep in victory as the table is righted. Ren removes his helmet as they twirl around in victory, then slams it down onto the tabletop. One side of the legs break under the force of it and the entire thing collapses again.

Angry beeping fills the room. Ren clenches his hands into his sweaty hair and glares up at Hux.

"You let my mother live, all right?" he snarls.

Hux watches the droids skitter and screech at their hard work being ruined. "What?"

"That's why I want to help," Ren says. He shakes a fist in Hux's direction without looking at him. "You let my mother live."

Hux takes a moment to consider this blatant lie.

"Well, next time I have the opportunity, I'll just have the vicious wench executed cleanly and then you won't have reason to act like a _lunatic_ upon my person or my ship."

Hux makes to stalk out in a fury, but he has to climb over broken furniture and skirt some unstable heaps of cooking equipment on his way to the door so for a dramatic exit there's definitely something lacking.

When he's almost out of the room, Ren calls after him.

"I was lying! Just so you know!"

Hux wills himself not to react. No turning back to shake his fist, no muttered curses, no stomping back to Ren for the express purpose of planting his boot squarely in the centre of Ren's gormless face.

Instead, he just grinds his teeth all the way back to the Bridge.

. . .

It's been a very long two weeks in the history of the Finalizer. It's been a very long two weeks with Ren following Hux around, one hand on his belt and a predatory set to his shoulders.

The phrase "purity conduit" reappears in Hux's frontal lobe, dances across his eyes in a mocking manner. He squashes it viciously down, tightens his grip on the stack of repair bills and upcoming supply runs he has to intercept before the Resistance does.

It's either finish reviewing these or get some sleep, no time to mull over an insane man's fantasies. He has to juggle things to give the troops the resources they need to function properly, while still conserving resources while the ill are recovering.

His gimpy leg twinges as he shifts in his seat. He grimaces, gives in and props it up on a hard-sided box full of broken datapad parts he wants to have a look at repairing, wills the muscle to stop knotting up and _distracting_ him.

The door to his quarters chime, then slide open before he can accept or reject the caller. Kylo Ren strides in, full regalia, robes sweeping along. He comes to a stop three paces from Hux's desk, and Hux decides to ignore the absolute shit out of him.

"There's a surplus of bacta," Ren says, points at Hux's leg.

Hux hums, pages through another report of food levels, all of them saying what he already knows. "The muscle just knots up now, it _will_ heal on its own. Fascinating fact that might interest you: humans in particular were designed to be self-repairing long before technology came along."

Ren's boots make horrible scuffing noises as he paces. Hux winces at the noise.

"Why will you not let me help you?" Ren growls. He sounds frustrated even with the vocoder doing its job.

Hux's focus is still on the datapad, but he keeps track of Ren's movements in the corner of his eye. "Why do you want to help me so much, that's the pertinent question here. And please don't cite your mother this time."

Ren comes to a stop on the floorspace on the other side of Hux's desk. He throws his hands into the hair, makes grasping motions at some nebulous concept he's apparently desperate to catch.

"I don't like seeing you hurt!"

Hux grits his teeth, closes one report and opens another.

"I know this _Force_ thing you hold so dear is an entirely different animal than those pesky items called "provable science" and "results-oriented focus groups", but I'm tired and I have a headache and this will have to wait for later if you're going to be so vague about it."

Ren freezes mid-air-grasp.

"Orgasms help with migraines. Is your headache at migraine level?"

"Not yet," Hux growls.

The spare chair creaks under Ren's weight as he plunks himself down onto it. He takes off his helmet, holds it in his lap with the face of it in Hux's direction, places his massive hands over his knees.

"I can wait."

Hux drops the datapad onto the desk, covers his eyes with both hands, and struggles not to groan.


	2. i'm your torpedo

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _scratch like a cat and bark like a bitch_  
>  _to let me know that you're mine_  
>  \-- I'm Your Torpedo, Eagles of Death Metal

On some sideline Outer Rim planet that the First Order gave the Finalizer orders to subjugate for supplies and to remake into a trading outpost for the Order's personal use, Hux is crawling through some archives in an ancient building. He has dust smeared up his exposed arms where he'd rolled up his shirtsleeves an hour before, scuffs on his boots, and his nose is running. But he's found some information on the Jedi, so he's doing his best to ignore the filth.

There's an old Jedi Shrine or something out in the jungle that Ren is looking for. That means Hux, for the first time in a long while, doesn't have the Knight following him around, sexually harassing him every time he sees that Hux isn't at a sprightly 100% health. Which is always, these days.

Stormtroopers wait outside the building and Hux winces as every clatter from their armour makes his headache worse. The way the main archival room was built, all sound is amplified times ten. Sharp sounds are the worse, like armour scraping against stone, or a blaster whining as one of the troopers checks on the function level for no apparent reason.

Hux pages through ancient flimsi copies of Force Information. The writing is all in code, what he can translate on the fly is vague like the wind, and after two hours of struggling through this all-encompassing hell he realises that this is going to take a lot longer to crack than he initially thought.

The only amusing thing he's found in all of this is what looks like a small press Jedi Cookbook, complete with koans or poetry between each recipe. Hux intends to use it as blackmail on Ren later.

At the end of his four hours in the moldering building he has a decent-sized stack of documents to go through at his leisure back on the ship, and a runny nose that won't quit. He cleans himself up as much as he can, rolls his sleeves back down, carefully dons his greatcoat that feels absolutely _smothering_ in this humid climate, and takes his findings with him as he finally gets to leave.

He exits the main archives to stand in the reception foyer where the curators are being held in chains. He gestures the stormtrooper squad leader over with a twist of his wrist, nods at the room he just exited.

"Burn it all to ashes and make them watch," he orders. The squad leader snaps off a salute and leads two flametroopers back into the building.

The curators collectively sob and plead for mercy as he leaves. He doesn't have time to indulge in the death knells of doomed humanoids, so he ignores them.

The stormtroopers are done setting up the podium and communication station in the plaza. Captured citizenry of this dullard town are clustered in the middle of the plaza so that the backs of their collective heads will show on the broadcast, but not their weeping faces.

Hux honestly doesn't care himself if the viewers at home know that they're crying or not. But the PR people back in their cushy offices would have a fit, and his headache never leaves now, so he won't court disaster.

He levers himself up onto the platform. His leg twinges in protest, he keeps his face smooth and indifferent. His datapad pings in his pocket, he checks it quickly for the message with a doublecheck on the coordinates of where this transfer is heading.

It's heading to the heart of the Resistance of course. He scowls at the screen and pockets it without replying. He is surrounded by fools and refuses to indulge their idiocy.

Hux grits his teeth and takes a heavy breath. The tear-stained faces that look up at him are rife with sadness and hate. If he wasn't so achy and tired, he'd probably be choking on laughter at the image they make.

"Ready when you are, Sir," the trooper manning the camera says.

Hux nods to the trooper, who ducks behind the camera, presses a button, and the red light on the left side of the casing lights up red.

"The subjugation of the Republic was dealt a blow with the use of the First Order's grand opus of Starkiller," Hux says, looking right at the lens of the camera and fighting back a wince at the sunlight's glare. "The excess Dionysian orgies of cultural waste were cut short, but the lack of ethical resource management remains in the few fledgling communities that struggle on."

Hux has to breathe through his teeth to fight off a cough while talking. "Here on this unnamed planet in the Outer Rim, we the First Order have found a classist system put forth by remnants of the Hosnian system. We have struck down this instance, but how many remain? How many more communities are currently under the thumb of this wasteful system, set to use the have-nots all so the haves can flourish?"

Ren's hulk of a robed body appears at the edge of the plaza. He stands off to the side, near the cordoned-off for captured civilians. His robes are visibly smoking from the shoulders and he holds the head of a surprised Twi'lek in his left hand.

There's no body of the Twi'lek around as far as Hux can see, so Ren presumably left it in the jungle.

"As we continue our freeing of the galaxy, our instigation of Order planet by planet, our message to the Resistance will be heard from the Outer Rim right to the heart of the Core Worlds. It will be carried on the backs of the disenfranchised, the hard-working peoples of the industry worlds, to the peons in the system of the bourgeoisie remnants of the Republic!"

The stromtroopers prod at the backs of the gathered citizens, who cheer wildly to avoid electrocution. Some are already crying, but most are screaming loud, as if that will give cause to spare their odd little lives.

The recording light flicks off and Hux lumbers off the podium awkwardly while the weeping citizens are rounded up by stormtroopers to be lead away for execution. He ignores the plaintive cries for mercy and staggers in a straight line across the littered plaza to Ren.

A perk of being The General, in disgrace or not: everyone moves out of your way.

The smoke is still wafting from Ren's robes as if embers are tucked into the tight-knit weave. "Why is it always fire?" Hux asks.

Instead of replying in a reasonable and sane fashion, Ren says, "You were very pretty up there in the sunlight."

Hux takes a moment to absorb that little gem. Then, "I'm going now."

He limps past Ren towards the street, leaving the Knight standing on the edge of things, dumbly holding a severed head at his side.

. . .

A report detailing that their food stores acquired from the Outer Rim planet will last out the month hits Hux's datapad in the morning.

By early afternoon, he has a Nutrient Supplier from an unnamed Outer Rim planet on the comm with visuals turned off, trying to pass himself off as a slave labour steward working for the hutts who is looking to boost the productivity of their workforce.

By late evening, nearly 2000 hours Imperial Time, Hux holds a conference with all command staff in the conference room four on deck three.

Ren actually attends this one. Hux isn't shocked because he knows this is just a ploy to get him to look upon the force user with favour, but the other officers are jumpy and skittish with Ren in the room.

"--and thus, all communiques with this supplier simply _must_ be done under the guise of this Dummy company of ours," Hux finishes his presentation with. He adds as an afterthought, "If a single slip-up occurs it's likely the deal will fall though. Catastrophe abounds."

Graggle from the Support Staff Division raises her hand.

"Wouldn't this tactic work to get us food as well? Fuel for our fleet?"

Hux nods to Phasma, who sits up straight from where she's been slouching in the chair beside him.

"Unlikely," she answers in his place. "The Resistance has released our troop requirements to all services sympathetic to the Republic, and they've networked amongst themselves. Even if we place numerous incremental orders, they'll add them up and have a result of us."

Petty Officer Hnung raises her hand this time. "Then why would this supplier be any different, Sirs?"

Hux inclines his head to the Petty Officer. "Because the owner doesn't affiliate himself with the Republic and their network. Some sort of secrecy code inherent to his culture. He doesn't want to support the First Order either for some nonsense reason, but he's an independent factor from our enemies as well."

"At this rate we'll be doing business with smugglers and thieves, Sir," a Lieutenant sat at the end of the table says. His face is ruddy and the dark circles under his eyes are like bruises. He scrubs at his chin while he stares at Hux blankly.

Hux raises an eyebrow at him, affects a slight grin. "Whatever keeps the War Machine running, Wenk."

Everyone goes quiet as they absorb that statement.

"We could take over more agricultural planets," Ren says.

All heads swivel to peer at Ren, hunched in his position in the corner of the room. They all look surprised that he bothered to contribute. Hux, not so much, but everyone else is definitely looking shocked.

"If the First Order can seize weapons and taxes in the name of acquisition, why not grains?" Ren continues.

Hux clenches his jaw and focuses on his datapad. "I'll explain later."

Ren stands up straight, his helmet catches the light in an odd way. "Hux--"

" _Later_ , Lord Ren," Hux snaps.

Brilliant, now all heads are facing Hux with their shock and bewilderment. He places the datapad down onto the table and glares at them, which of course has no effect. Puking on the Bridge during the food poisoning episode laid an irreparable and heavy blow to his reputation. Damnit.

"Is there anything else to add, or are we going to go back to work?" Phasma drawls from her chair. Sometimes she's an excellent judge of when to be rude. Not always. But today her judgement is sound.

The room evacuates like a gas leak, leaves Hux and Ren by themselves. Ren shakes in place until the doors close, then leaps to his feet and stalks right up to Hux.

"You can't explain it to me in front of everyone? What was that about?"

Hux pokes at his datapad just so he has something to do with his hands. It also makes him look busy. "I wanted to save your face."

The aforementioned face goes blank for a moment, then Ren blinks.

"You don't mean that literally, right?"

Hux stops messing with the datapad. It's just Ren, there's no use for it. Instead, he pinches at the bridge of his nose and closes his eyes as he takes a steadying breath.

"You should really know this sort of thing by now," he says, "You're the son of a bloody politician."

He opens his eyes and sees Ren's look of amusement. It just makes the irritation grow, unfortunately.

"And the son of a smuggler, and I was sent to live with a rusticated hermit and his appropriated children when I was young to learn mystical arts," Ren says. His tone lilts, like he's teasing. "You want to save my face? You _like_ my face?"

Ren leans forward, chin jutting out to lead. Hux reaches up with one hand to catch the attempt and covers Ren's mouth and nose with his gloved hand, shoves back to get some room to himself again.

"I will explain this once and once only," Hux hisses, shoves at Ren again when he just wobbles back and forth like a children's toy, "The First Order can't take food from the _acquired_ planets because the propaganda says we don't. In exchange for signing over their governments to us we take taxes from the city infrastructure, from the _governing powers_ , and--"

"You take bribes," Ren mumbles against Hux's hand, leans harder against the shove. They're at a stalemate, so Hux is starting to lean away without really wanting to.

"Yes, yes, we take bribes, oh the horror." He rolls his eyes, throws his bodyweight against Ren and topples the other man onto the floor while barely staying upright himself. He catches himself on the table edge and sneers down at Ren's grinning maw. "We seize their weapons in the name of safety if there's a mere hint of an uprising, but we can't come out of this situation as the good guys here if we strip the civilians of their nourishment as well as everything else."

Ren stops grinning in favour of raising his eyebrows and propping himself up on his elbows.

"We're supposed to be the good guys?"

. . .

Deck Seven down near the simulation rooms require inspection by a Commanding Officer once every six Imperial Months, and Hux takes it upon himself to do it this time. Last time was Ren's turn, and fire happened. They also were at only half capacity rather than a third back then, and it was still disastrous and hard to deal with.

He exits the ammunition depot with a proud click to his step. They polished the guns last night, he could _see his reflection_ in the barrels. It's all very satisfying, he'll have to make certain they don't get shuttled to the battlefield any time soon.

Phasma is down the halls quite a way discussing something with that Petty Officer from the Bridge. He checks his inspection list on his datapad, realises he's finished for the day, and decides to join them.

Then a herd of repair droids fall on his head in a rain of ceiling tiles, destroyed insulation tubing, and a lot of mechanical screeching.

It takes them forty minutes to drag him out of the mess. His leg is clearly reinjured because he tries to stand on it and topples back onto a scuttling droid as a result. He allows the troopers to pull him back up, uses them as leaning posts while he hobbles from the fray and checks dark corners for threats.

"Sir, you need to go to Medical," Petty Officer Hnung tells him, appearing like a magical being right before his eyes. He props an elbow on the head of a shorter stormtrooper and blinks at her, ponders her existence, feels the swelling on his knee and rues the fact that he woke up today.

He decides to ignore her and stares at the shadows of the wreckage he's emerged from. Is Ren going to lurch out from that mess with his trousers already off? Is he going to have to yell at a naked Force User in front of his men?

This feeling might be called panic. It might be panic and a well-honed survival instinct run amok. Phasma appears next to Hnung and doesn't say a word to him, just calls for some troopers and keeps her helmet turned away in respect as he quietly breathes through the urge to vomit on her.

He swallows down bile, and Phasma directs two troopers, one under each of Hux's arms, to drag him away from the wreckage. Hux permits the bodily removal inasmuch as he doesn't have a choice in the matter. These troopers are strong, and Phasma would probably break down and yell if he tried to scurry away from them again.

He doesn't stop wildly scanning the area for threats of Kylo Ren, however.

"Where is he?" He shouts at Phasma's back as she leads the limping trifecta away. "He's bloody around here somewhere, _lurking_ , I just know it!"

Petty Officer Hnung stands against the wall to allow them to pass unobstructed. "Sir, Lord Ren isn't anywhere around. Unless you're saying he caused the droids to--"

Hux goes bah and twists his head to glare at her after they've passed her. "Oh, no, that's just _typical_. Ren's about to swoop down upon _me_ , he takes any given opportunity!"

Hnung does not follow to continue the conversation, so Hux assumes she's seen the validity to his argument and is going to run off and do something about it.

"Sir, you've hit your head," Phasma says. They all take a left hand turn at the four-way intersection, stormtroopers scatter past them on their way to the devastation. "Perhaps if we were to summon a hovercot for your transfer?"

Hux snarls wordlessly and nearly strangles the two troopers under his arms by bending at the elbows and shaking them. "It's his bloody belt! You'd know what I'm talking about if you saw the Supreme Leader's twinkling eyes!"

Phasma wisely drops the conversational gambit and continues to silently lead.

Hux's head swivels as they approach another four-way intersection in the halls.

"Are you sure he's not here?"

Phasma's step does not falter, though her shoulders hitch a small amount. "Sir, we have just passed the flight deck cafeteria. I did not see him inside. You can see for yourself that he isn't in the hall."

"He could be using the Force to make us not see him," Hux says. He tightens his arms around the necks of the stormtrooper crutches, makes them stumble just a bit. "An invisibility cloak!"

"Then I wouldn't know he was here, and am unable to accurately answer your questions," Phasma replies. She sounds bored.

He scowls at her tone.

"He keeps making advances, Captain. If he appears, you shoot him. That's an order."

Phasma angles her head in his direction but doesn't turn it fully to look at him. "Shoot one of my Commanding Officers at the behest of the other? Sir, that sounds like a power-grab."

"Well don't shoot him anywhere important!" He staggers a bit, the troopers holding him up scramble to keep him from toppling over in his rage. "Blow off his hand!"

"Of course, Sir," Phasma says in perfect monotone. "Preference as to which?"

His mood darkens even further as he contemplates the choices. It's a no-brainer, really. "His right one. He keeps using that one on his belt."

"Your fixation on Ren's mode of dress is admirable," Phasma says, while the crutchtroopers are shaking in his grip. Possibly in alarm, possibly in a struggle for more airflow. Hux tries to relax his grip on them and only succeeds a little bit.

Hux, being of the stellar character of observational skills, notices that these specific troopers are the perfect height for him to comfortably lay his arms across each of their shoulders to keep himself up, but not so short that they'd be decommissioned from trooper service.

He then begins to wonder about size classifications that Phasma might have created when he handed over the programme to her a few years ago. Do they have certain troopers for tiny work? Others for work of largess? It would be just like her to delegate according to size and not tell him a damn thing about it.

He cocks his head to the left and eyeballs the side of the trooper's helmet.

"You."

The trooper's grip on his arm tightens and relaxes in a spasm. "Me, Sir?"

Hux bares his teeth. "Yes, _you_. Do you know of any small troopers designated for work in small spaces?"

"Leave her alone, Sir," Phasma says without turning around.

"No, I need to know this. I need to know what you've done with the programme, Captain," he snaps at her, then to the trooper he continues, "Do you know of any troopers of a small size who are assigned smallwork. It's like wetwork, but set in cupboards and ventilation shafts. Medium sized cargo boxes. On primitive planets, possibly inside soft-cloth sacks."

The trooper under Hux's right arm is trembling, in terror or approaching a severe bout of incontinence, Hux does not know nor care. His focus is entirely upon the left arm trooper and her spasming hand.

"Wouldn't ventilation shafts fall under mechanical, Sir? Amongst the tech workers on support staff?" the trooper asks, tentative.

Hux considers her question.

"You are very smart for a stormtrooper."

Her hand spasms again, but not as abrupt. She must be getting control of that tic. "Thank you, Sir," she says.

He glares at the back of Phasma's head for a moment, then remembers the conversation. Everything makes him dizzy, maybe he _did_ hit his head.

"Not having any thoughts of going traitor, are we?" he asks the left crutchtrooper.

She shakes her head a little. "No, Sir."

"Because as a representative of the First Order, I was required to put a price on FN-2187's head on account of treachery," he continues.

The crutchtrooper under his right arm bobbles his step a little, jostles Hux's stiffening leg enough to make him wince. "Oh look, heres the hallway to Medical. There are the doors to Medical. Let's hurry on to Medical," the trooper says, desperately.

Hux ignores him. "And I would very much dislike having to put a hit out on you. I like smart people. But only if they are not treacherous."

"Thank you Sir," she mumbles, dips the chin of her helmet towards her chest. "I will not disappoint you, Sir."

"I also like smart people who aren't Ren," Hux adds, just because he can.

"You think I'm smart?" Ren asks from where he's crouching in front of the closed doors to Medical. He blinks up at Hux and the trooper ensemble like a gormless idiot, wrapped in his robes and somehow, without his boots or socks.

"Where have you been?" Hux yells at him. "I've been waiting to be harassed sexually for hours now!"

Phasma finally looks at Hux, but it's only to dismiss the crutches. "GU-5932, YD-0761, return to your divisions."

Both crutchtroopers carefully work in tandem to dislodge Hux from their persons and prop him standing against the wall just outside the doors to Medical. They then do a quickstep back the way they came, but Hux notes it's not regulation at all, it's just a fleeing motion without the terrified screaming.

"What happened to him? He's hurt!" Ren shouts in Phasma's helmet

"The upper ventilation shaft in the ammunition depot sector collapsed," Phasma reports, prim and succinct. "The General was caught in the landslide."

Ren glares at her. "Landslide of what? Ceiling tiles don't do that."

"Of repair droids, Sir," Phasma says, slowly explaining as if to a recalcitrant child, though her posture remains impeccable despite things. "The initial supposition from the on-site technicians are that they were making a colony up there."

"Declaring their independence from the First Order, no doubt," Hux snarls and rolls his head against the wall. It's cool against his overheated scalp, feels nice in his addled state.

"Did he hit his head?" Ren sounds tentative, so Hux opens his eyes and glares at him.

Phasma coughs through her vocoder. "Most likely. If you'll be so kind as to remove yourself from the entry to Medical so he can be inspected, Sir?"

Ren holds out a hand to Hux, palm up. A cold swirl of dread forms in Hux's stomach, but he is not surprised at all.

"No, I must help him. He never lets me help, but he has to now."

"I don't have to do anything of the sort," Hux snaps.

"Hux, _you're hurting_ ," Ren says. He shakes his hand at Hux. "It'll only take a minute!"

"Is this you making the sexual overture so things can return to normal?" Hux asks. Curls his lip. Braces himself against the wall just in case Ren tackles him or something. "I have to turn you down before I can get medical attention, else I'll be nervous the entire time the medroid's looking at me."

Ren drops his hand and looks quite put out. It's a delicious look on him, as far as Hux's concerned.

Also as far as he's concerned: the self-diagnosis is at concussion, because Ren and deliciousness shouldn't be in the same descriptor set. Ever.

Phasma looks between them. She'd look curious if she would take that blasted helmet off, but she keeps it on, so instead she looks like she's undertaking a mechanical malfunction.

"Sirs, off the record?" she asks.

Hux feels magnanimous so he waves a hand at her. Ren scowls from his hunched position at the door to Medical.

Phasma narrows her eyes at the both of them. "If this is a domestic, please take care of it out of sight of the troopers. The First Order has a severe no Domestic Violence law in place, and we typically space abusers for that reason. But if Lord Ren is the perpetrator we _can't_ space him out of respect to Snoke. This mess of yours will only amplify the longer it goes on, Sirs."

Hux gapes at her for a moment, so does Ren. Then simultaneously:

"I'm not abusing him! He won't let me heal him!" Ren shouts.

"Domestic?? We're not together!" Hux screeches over him.

Phasma shakes her head and leaves them. Hux shouts after her clunking away, "Go on, go! You slanderer!" and Ren staggers away from the Medical doors as a medroid emerges to poke him viciously in the side, intent on retrieving Hux since he won't come inside on his own.

. . .

At one quarter capacity amounting to thirty thousand souls, The Finalizer only needs five of her fifteen cafeterias working. Hux choses to dine at the one furthest from the Bridge, down on deck six, just to give his leg much needed exercise.

Also: Ren doesn't go around the techs if he can help it. They have an odd fascination with his helmet, and it greatly amuses Hux to know that Ren detests being stared at.

Today he ordered from the Starvation Ration Menu. They're still two weeks from having to enforce it as an absolute, but it shows good initiative on his part if he starts early in full view of everyone. Never mind that he never stopped being on that diet since the last enforcement.

He supplements with alcohol, it's fine.

The lumbering form of Kylo Ren enters the cafeteria from the South entrance. No one pays any mind to him except Hux, who growls into his tray. The man makes his way straight to Hux's table, sits down heavily across from him without a word.

"Do sit down, how nice to see you." Hux waves the hand not holding his spork at Ren, a farce of conciliatory graciousness. "Everything all right with the family of four back in the Hosnian System?"

"I like your eyes," says Ren.

Hux gently puts the spork back on his tray. It was already laden with glorious and nutritious glob mush. He was looking forward to getting the experience done with of putting the stuff in his mouth and having to taste it while keeping a straight face. But now he has something else to do, something distracting and which must be nipped in the bud, so to speak.

It helps that he's gone past being appalled by this behaviour; he's just not going to encourage this sort of disgrace, either.

"Ren, I don't know what you're up to, but--"

"I'm trying something."

Hux narrows his eyes. "Complimenting me into your bed isn't going to work."

Ren doesn't move. "Okay."

Hux's suspicion grows. Now he places both hands on the table, palms flat on the smoothed steel, and he leans forward a bit, desperate for the conveyance of seriousness it provides.

"Okay?"

Ren shrugs. His helmet doesn't react to anything Hux is doing, and it is _maddening_.

"I thought it was stupid anyway. Obviously I like that stuff about you, because why else would I be pursuing you in the first place? You can infer that on your own, you don't need me to tell that stuff to you."

It takes a moment for Hux to absorb that. Then, "You're trying to heal my wounds using the act of sex because you like my eyes?"

Ren clasps his gloved hands together on the table like an overeager child.

"They're all steely and evil. It's quite attractive."

While Hux considers this he picks his spork back up, hefts it carefully in his hand.

"Well, I suppose I should be glad you've skipped over pick-up lines," he says, then takes a bite.

"I couldn't find any about what I wanted to do to you that didn't reference Jabba the Hutt and my mother."

The glob mush tries to go down Hux's windpipe instead of the usual route, causes him to embark on a coughing fit as he chokes. Ren smacks him on the back between the shoulders, makes so much noise with each thwack that all of the technicians and mechanics taking lunch are staring now.

Hux glares with wet eyes at Ren and croaks out a growl. Ren is impassive, but at least he stops hitting him.

. . .

Petty Officer Hnung approaches him at the start of Beta Shift with a report on her datapad and a desperate grin on her face. He turns away from Phasma to glance at the data she shows, and finds himself almost smiling as well.

There are ten planets so far she's certified are so remote that they take whichever trade offers they get, first come first served. And they're only two days out from the first one, if they change course right this instant.

Hux doesn't say a word, just swipes his biometric in approval so she has the funds and personnel to research every planet thoroughly, then hands the datapad back.

"Thank you, sir," she says, salutes, hurries away to her console to begin work.

Hux straightens his shoulders and looks out through the transparisteel at the galaxy before them. It's a very good feeling to find a way to solve problems without having to rely on the higher ups to bother tossing them a bone.

He realises at that moment that he's become rather disillusioned with the politics that make up the First Order's government. How worrisome.

Phasma coughs. He jerks out of his reverie and winces as the sharp lights reflect on the Captain's armour right into his aching eyes.

"Apologies, Phasma. What were we discussing?"

"Your whimsy, Sir."

He snorts. "A furnace that runs on the corpses of malnourished orphans is not _whimsy_."

"Why must they be malnourished, then?" Phasma asks, tilts her head. The reflections glitter and spark. "Would it not work on well-fed orphans?"

Hux sniffs and ignores the appalled looks they're getting from the officers manning the security station nearby. One would think they've never had a conversation with a friend before in their life the way they're going on.

. . .

The Supply Trawler from Dagobah is lost to Resistance interference just in the outskirts of Hutt Space. Hux stands in the centre of the bridge, stares out at the stars, and quietly seethes while Phasma reads out the personnel losses, the loss of supplies, the loss of _food_ they will now have to account for to the Supreme Leader and the politicians back home.

"What I want to know is why they didn't see the _obvious_ swarm of enemy ships on their RADAR," Hux enunciates clearly and with a quiet menace. "The final transmission displayed a clear array, and yet _no one thought to engage the shields?_ "

Everyone but Phasma winces as he roars the last bit.

"Sounds like an inside job, Sir," Phasma drawls from her position in front of the communications array. She inspects where her fingernails would be if she weren't wearing her armour's shiny glove things.

"Heads will _roll_ ," he snarls and furiously limps in a circle to express his rage. His rage at _incompetence_.

Phasma tilts her head at him.

"Is that really your place to promise anymore, sir?"

The collective staff of officers hunch their shoulders as one unit as Hux whirls on her.

The doors to the Bridge whoosh open before he can order her to reconditioning. They reveal Kylo Ren in full Knight ensemble, with lit sabre in hand and helmet making rattling noises as he breathes.

"Are you a rathar sacrifice? Because looking at you, I want to fill all your orifices at once just like one."

Hux calmly pulls a metal chair out from under Officer Danker sitting at his terminal regarding guided missiles and flings it overhand at Ren.

Ren sidesteps the flying furniture so that the chair lands on the wall opposite the door with a loud metallic crash. Then he powers off his lightsabre and shrugs.

"Okay, that one wasn't really good," he says, then the Bridge doors close and he's gone again.

Hux finds himself breathing quite heavily, either from the exertion or the sheer rage. He forces himself to calm down using the count of four for each intake and exhale, then relaxes his shoulders and notices that Officer Danker is still flat out on the floor.

"Throwing things at Lord Ren is highly therapeutic," he tells Danker. "I feel much better for it. Perhaps I should submit a programme proposal for the moral of the troops, what do you think?"

Officer Danker lies prone on his back and silently stares up at Hux with wide eyes and lips quivering. There's the scent of urine in the air, and it's most likely from him. Hux isn't absolutely certain about it, however, so he rolls his eyes and waves a dismissing hand.

. . .

The Bridge stays in command to various backup personnel while Hux stays awake for three days straight so he can design and test a new device of his own creative genius. It's a small box, the size of a datapad just about, that displays a kind of RADAR that he fancifully describes in the blueprints to detect smugness levels commonly found in Resistance members.

But really, the thing just runs on the vibration signatures emitted by the X-Wings and other spacecraft that are commonly used by their enemies.

Since his fall from grace, Hux has to get approval from a mid-level politician if he is to incite mass production across the fleet. Senator Slibb is the only one available when he initiates a conference over the holonet, much to his despair and quietly building hatred.

The Senator is snide, glib, and clearly not listening to Hux's presentation. Hux supposes the man feels like he needn't bother, considering that Hux and the Finalizer merely _used_ to be someone in the Order he had to defer to, but who is now just some out-of-date military mook chasing Republic remnants across the galaxy. It doesn't help that his assigned mission is, in layman's terms, to fight off Resistance members from bloody _foodstuffs_ while the real battle is going on elsewhere.

"Give me test data first," Slibb sneers over the video. Hux dips his chin in deference because he has to, not because he wants to.

"I will have a full report within the week, Senator."

Slibb rolls his eyes-- _rolls his eyes!_ \-- and keys off the transmission without another word. The screen goes dark, the speakers crackle and screech, and Hux sits for a moment, tries to coax his jaw to unclench.

Resignation cuts into his throat, leaves him bleeding anger down his chest and makes his skin feel hot. The prototype and the datachip with the blueprints on them sit on the table, mock him thoroughly.

The sooner Engineering gets this, the sooner it will help, Hux reminds himself. Doesn't move from his chair. The sooner he successfully submits something the sooner he'll feel better, he tacks on at the end.

The last bit is what gets him to stand, scoop up the items from the desk and leave the room with travelling intent to be used on the turbolift down the hall. Just get over it, he thinks. Get over it and soldier on.

After all, politicians are a transient commodity, but a trained man with a blaster can keep fighting just as well no matter who is in charge, who they have to report to.

. . .

The First Order finally gets another supply through to the Finalizer. It's a small one, mainly medical supplies they have to drop off at outposts that serve the battlefields as the ship moves along her proscribed route along the galaxy, but it has enough food just for them that the Finalizer's crew of thirty thousand will remain fed for another week.

Hux is cautious about being present in the hold for the unloading, but Phasma refused to take over for him so he stands out and away from any high-up structures and watches the crates and drums of miscellaneous things be rolled down ramps on trolleys.

Petty Officer Roget is darting around marking things off on his datapad. He avoids looking in Hux's direction, skitters from cargo load to cargo load, keeps his head down and his shoulders hunched up around his ears.

If Hux were a better man, he wouldn't find such excellent amusement in the man's discomfort. Instead, he has a slight grin that he can't quite excise and lies to himself, thinks that the troopers will assume he's smiling because he's glad for the supplies, not because he's glorying in someone's existential anguish.

A hoverskiff laden with drums slowly saunters down a ramp. The labels on the sides have huge bubble-type lettering decrying the contents as Mynock-Grade Lubricant. Hux stares at them as they skiff is shoved in its entire to the side and left for pickup all on its lonesome.

The datapad in Hux's pocket has the shipping manifest. Hux retrieves it and skims for mechanical orders, finds nothing about any sort of lubricant whatsoever. He sighs and switches to medical requisitions, doesn't find anything there either.

With great trepidation he loads the personal requisition section, and there right near the top is Kylo Ren's seal of order. Hux powers the datapad off and shoves it back into his pocket, glares at the excess of slick a mere five metres away, and tries to think of what to do next.

His mind is blank. Nothing comes to him. Not like Ren's coming on himself, apparently, and Hux winces at that thought, all the innuendo is getting to him.

Ren is clearly unashamed in regards to his purchase when he swans into the cargo hold to take custody of the load. He directs the laden skiffs using the Force, some nonexistent breeze causing his robes to flap enticingly out behind him.

A stormtrooper somewhere whistles in appreciation after Ren is gone, so Hux spends the next hour threatening extensive reprogramming on the entire room if they don't give up the lone whistler until Phasma leaves the Bridge and stops his rampage.

. . .

Another audience with Snoke in the holochamber occurs later on the same cycle. Hux has a datapad in his hands and is referring to it as he details the supply run successes. Ren stands next to him, wobbling a bit as he stands, clearly on the verge of napping in place.

Hux is entirely unsympathetic and keeps his tone as even as possible, just to be cruel.

"--and two Resistance pilots were captured along with their X-Wings. They are being held in interrogation now. Using the skill set of our interrogation droids and Lord Ren, we've already drawn the location of their temporary base, but with permission from you, Sir, I would like to supplant their characteristic hope into a trigger phrase recondition module and send them back into their fold as sleeper agents for our cause."

Snoke picks at the cloth draped over his knee in an idle fashion, hums as if to express consideration. After a moment, he asks, "Tell me, have you given much research to your injuries, General?"

Hux stares. Snoke's eyes are twinkling, though hopefully that's an error in the hologram. He honestly doesn't know what to say in any case.

"Sir, I--"

"Your injuries linger," Snoke says. He trills his R on the word linger, it's quite disturbing. "Your series is not yet complete and will only worsen if you do not make use of your resources at hand."

Hux looks over at Ren, who in turn is staring down at his boots. He looks back at Snoke, waiting on his throne. Back to Ren, still as a petrified bantha. Returns to Snoke, who steeples his fingers before his mouth and _grins_.

He realises he looks like a moron, but who in this room is going to call him on it? The virgin Force User? The virgin Force User's beast matchmaker master??

Luckily Hux is very good at improvised strategy. He got top marks at the Academy for it.

"Supreme Leader, I call issue with the supposed use of resources in favour of proper allotment and management," he says.

Ren stops staring at his boots to stare at Hux. Even through that blasted helmet, he's obviously staring.

Snoke nods once, presses his lips against his own fingers, murmurs like a king, "I will hear them."

Hux forces himself to take a deep breath. "Sir, what if you were to become terribly injured and only a Force User could heal you?"

The ensuing silence is so pervasive a dropped pin would sound like a grenade going off.

"I see," Snoke says. He's stopped smiling, at least. That may or may not herald bad things for Hux's lifespan, but no use for it.

"I merely protest the use of such a valuable, _single use_ resource on a replaceable General, Sir," Hux continues. He's not dead yet, he's not dead yet, he's not dead yet. "The First Order will soldier on quite well without me should I be removed. The First Order will not, on the other hand, do much at all without _you_."

" _Single use_ ," Snoke drawls, long and slow. "I see."

Ren is stock still and silent. Hux looks at him from the side and raises one eyebrow, quirks the corner of his lips in a subtle smirk. He's not dead yet, so he can do this.

"Your research is wrong, General," Snoke says.

Hux snaps his gaze away from Ren back to Snoke. He feels a muscle in his neck twinge.

"What?"

Snoke grins, slow. "There is no single use."

Hux does not look at Ren. He does not look at Ren. _He absolutely does not fucking look at Ren._

"I was working with the information that Ren's power was dependant upon his--" here, Hux gives in and shoots a glare at Ren's great big fat helmeted head, "His _virginity_ , Sir."

The grin slides from his mouth as Snoke blinks, once. "The purity comes from within, General. If the vassal can become tarnished with personal use and not effect the potency of the act, then the repeated medicinal use in circumstances that require it's full attention will not diminish the effects."

Hux is stunned. "Then why..."

Snoke's lip curls. "I am pleased with your progress on the subjugation of the Resistance's allies on the resource level. Continue the good work, rebuild beyond this setback, and I will guide both of you to the glory of a galaxy made of order and form."

The Supreme Leader then leans forward in his throne. Ren is still staring at Hux through his helmet, but Hux is enduring the full-force of Snoke's beady, twinkling eyes.

"Let this be the last I hear about your presumption on resource management, General," Snoke says, sly, "And my supposed... _availability to injury_ as well."

Hux swallows. He knows a threat when he hears one.

"Yes, Supreme Leader. I meant no disrespect."

Snoke leans back, steeples his fingers, considers Hux with that malevolent glint he always seems to have these days. "Of course you didn't."

The transmission cuts out, the lights go up. Hux feels his bowels unwind from the terror of having Snoke discussing his apprentice's masturbatory habits while Ren wrenches his helmet off and spikes it on the cold durasteel flooring.

Ren's eyes are wide and wet, his mouth is twisted in disgust.

"You want me to use my purity conduit on _Snoke_?!" he cries.

"Oh for the love of--" Hux doesn't roll his eyes, but only in deference to years of training the dictates he shouldn't. "It's called a _cock_ , Ren."

He stomps as well as he can with the limp right out of the holochamber, leaving Ren loudly hyperventilating behind him.


	3. i came to make a bang

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _pull me, i'm your fabulous weapon_  
>  _i'll hit your target, boy, so you see_  
>  _well i'm in too tight, gonna feel it tonight, yeah_  
>  _baby here i stand, i'm your impossible man!_  
>  \-- Don't Speak (I Came to Make a Bang), Eagles of Death Metal  
> (modified with, ofc, "boy" in the place of the word "girl", because _come on_.)

The blood he coughs up onto the grass is tacky, appears black under the tree-filtered light. He nearly bit through his tongue when he landed from being tossed like a rag doll by the concussive blast of that explosion. Lost a couple molars; they glitter on the grass a half-metre away, where he vomited them up with bile when he'd tried to roll to his feet too quickly.

He still has his assault blaster, though. He didn't drop it. He's a good soldier when it matters.

"Fucking Yavin IV," he says wetly, nigh incoherent; the words tumble from his mouth with the blood and the spit.

He drags the blaster to him where he holds himself up on all fours. The handle is cracked but the structure of the muzzle, the barrel, are intact. The thing should still work, at least. One more shot in it, regardless of what comes after.

A bit more legibly-- less slurred but with recognised pain-- he says, "Fucking rebel scum."

Hux faces the direction he was thrown from, balances on his knees. He props the assault blaster on his shoulder, sights it at Ren fighting some Force User Chiss wearing Jedi robes. The thrumming in his ears makes the visuals wobble, he can't shoot clear without possibly hitting Ren instead.

Not the most ideal thing to do, take out the best weapon on the field. Therefore, he must be careful.

He breathes slow, in and out. Waits out the throb of pulse pounding staccato under his skin. Ignores the trickle of blood and saliva eking from the corners of his mouth. On the count of seven, he holds his breath, squeezes the trigger, and the Chiss' neck rips open wide, the head flies clear off.

The stock of the blaster is too hot in Hux's hands so he lets it drop to the grasses. He follows it down and catches himself on both hands, spits up saliva, lets his pulse resume its orchestra of wailing protest upon his person.

"Fucking--" he croaks, spits, chokes, "Fucking _Ren_."

Speak of the monster and you will see his boots in your face, apparently. Ren's are covered in blood and encroach Hux's limited field of vision, which means he's standing right over him, too close to be appropriate.

"Are you ever going to do things the easy way?"

"Just because it's easy for you doesn't mean it's easy for me," Hux says to the grass, to Ren's boots.

Ren drops to his knees. Now his crotch is in Hux's field of vision as well, the spread of his thighs, the ragged edges of his robes. Hux closes his eyes and tries to inhale through his nose, the air catches at the back of his throat and he coughs wretched instead.

Arms thick and corded with muscle tentatively reach across Hux's shoulders. Ren pulls Hux closer, presses Hux's forehead against the neck of his robes, holds onto him and waits.

Hux doesn't sag into the embrace, such an action would never be acceptable, but he feels the warmth radiating from another human being and doesn't pull away, either.

. . .

Hux's mouth is packed with bacta soaked into special cotton-type sponges. His entire face feels swollen, irritated, and enunciation is damn difficult, so he left the Bridge in Mitaka's less than capable hands and hides in his quarters.

The medroids gave him orders to rest anyway. Granted, they're concerned about his leg yet still, but he's using the excuse to catch up on reading and avoid more harm to his reputation as a fearsome monster of the First Order. He only just got past the damn projectile vomiting bit, he can't afford a bout of fainting right now.

The Jedi Cookbook he filched from the archives on that jungle planet two weeks past is splayed flat on the desk. He has two datapads open and running, one to record his translations on, another to search out references on the holonet he doesn't quite understand.

He'll be damned if he'll ask _Ren_ for information. The man would act squiggly and mysterious, leave Hux seething and no more informed than he started as.

So far he's got two sonnets dedicated to someone's "corded thighs" and a recipe on Sullust bean muffins for his trouble. He jabs at his holonet search bar and closes out the article on proper mashing procedures before he becomes thoroughly disgusted and moves on to the next section, apparently titled "Expressions".

Hux's comm pings from where he placed it earlier on the edge of his desk. The vibrate function is off, else the thing would fall clear off the furniture and remove itself from the equation.

He taps it with his finger and side-eyes the display. Then he rolls his eyes and hits the connect button. "Is something on fire, Lieutenant?"

"Lord Ren isn't on the Bridge, Sir," Mitaka answers. His voice wavers, either from the connection or because he's just that much of a milksop. "You had an alert set in the system to notify you when forty-eight Imperial Standard hours had passed since last transmission from the _San Berdoo_ was recorded."

Hux flicks through a partial translation of a limerick in the Jedi Cookbook that extensively references "spooning" and "forking". Someone clearly thought they were clever.

"The entire First Order uses the Imperial system, and yet we all feel the need to mention it at every turn," Hux muses. Then he closes the limerick translation because the second verse is about spatulas.

Mitaka hesitates on the line, gives a timid "Sir?"

"Thank you for the update, Lieutenant," Hux says, then closes the connection with another tap of his finger. He's onto the next recipe, he'll deal with another fatal loss to the First Order later.

The third ingredient on the list is one he recognises, and when he skips ahead to the preparation instructions he permits himself a malevolent grin.

It's always nice to have some illumination be shed on the great mysteries of life, and the one regarding Bothan Laceworks can now be considered solved.

. . .

It's three days gone since the last signal from the _San Berdoo_ is caught by the First Order. It's a supply trawler that _was_ moving through Hutt Space, and the Finalizer is assigned a quick manoeuvre back to the Core Worlds area to see if they can find sign of it. The higher-ups don't even give Hux a recorded vid with the orders, they send a text missive with the "receipt upon opening" option clearly checked at the top.

Ren joins the party on the Bridge. It's a lot of standing around in official capacity waiting to see if the transmission sent pings back, and is clearly out of Ren's depth, because after a mere ten minutes in the presence of such official procedure, the Knight begins to fidget.

"Apologies, my Lord," Hux says after Ren has adjusted his gloves for the third time in as many minutes, "Are you _bored_?"

Ren turns his helmeted head in Hux's direction; the vocoder crackles like a sheet of dried plant pulp burning.

"I was under the impression that resistance fighters would make an appearance."

"Then shouldn't you be in the hanger, ready to swoop out in that ungainly ship of yours?"

Ren turns away. "...the Force wills me to be here."

It takes everything in Hux's willpower to not roll his eyes at the man. "So you were bored, and decided to be bored up here."

"I'm clearly not enjoying myself as much as you are, General," Ren simpers at him. "Did you wake up on the preferred side of the bed this morning?"

The officers are pretending to not be hanging on every word. Hux notices Petty Officer Huang in particular dart her gaze from her commanding officers, to her workstation, and back again, all in this rapidfire loop that is probably giving her a massive headache. 

"Just catching up on some light reading. I do so love expanding my mind, you see." Hux inspects the stitching on his left glove. "So tell me: you're not a Sith, am I correct?"

"No!" Ren points at the door, which shakes under the attention. "The Sith do a lot of things differently. They used to--"

"Does that make you a Jedi?" Hux asks. He really doesn't care about the Sith, he's not going to stand here and listen to Ren postulate on their practises.

The door to the bridge screeches open and slams closed very quickly.

"I am not a Jedi!" Ren shouts. Actually _shouts_.

Hux raises one eyebrow to communicate how unimpressed he is. "I only ask because of my limited information on the Force, Lord Ren, and I--"

"You only want to make me upset! I won't stand for this!"

" _And I_ recently heard of this sect of _Ancient Jedi_ , see..." Hux continues, talks right over him.

"The Ancients died out for a reason," Ren snarls.

Hux hums. "Oh? Venereal diseases?"

Ren freezes.

"What?"

Hux can't help himself, he simply _must_ grin, just a little.

"Bunch of randy bastards, is all I will say on the matter. And apparently a group of blokes your family pays homage to!"

A moment of quiet transpires. Then, Ren says, "You've crossed the line into slanderous, General."

Hux notices that the entire Bridge Staff have now given up pretence and are looking away from their respective stations to watch the discussion. He makes a mental note to torture them with a new duty rotation in the bowels of the ship before the Imperial week is out, then leans forward a bit so he can peer up the visor of Ren's helmet.

"I hear..." he pauses for effect, "...snivelling. Your mask might muffle it, but the syntax is _suspiciously_ familiar to how you sound when you're--"

The screens on the surrounding monitor stations all crack in a glorious rush, fritz with static, shoot sparks in the faces of their collectively recoiling assigned officers. Hux relaxes back and smirks while Ren shakes in place from the shoulders down.

"Fine, that's how you want it?" Ren snarls. He sounds truly menacing to someone who doesn't already know him. To someone who doesn't know that the man's dick _glows_ , disgustingly enough. Ren twirls in place and stalks off the bridge, shouts at the doors before they open, "I'll just go destroy more of your _precious_ ship!"

"I look forward to your whining in the ensuing reports!" Hux calls after him with a jaunty wave.

"This junk heap is all you care about anyway!" Ren shouts back and stomps through the doors.

"The Finalizer is not a _junk heap_ ," Hux says, idle. He knows the man can hear him through that bloody Force nonsense, no need to shout. " And if there is any structural damage made to her today I will space you, don't think I won't."

There's no reply from Ren. The doors close behind him and muffle an explosion that rock the locking mechanisms on the walls, cause the durasteel to creak. Hux stands at the command platform and breathes through a clenched jaw. He tries to keep calm and carry on through these theatrics, but it's quite hard to not participate. Like with a blaster rifle and a target painted onto the back of Ren's big fat head.

Petty Officer Hnung takes one tentative step towards him. She looks very conflicted in the face.

"...Sir?"

Hux relaxes his face with one great push of effort and caps it off by waving a hand at her. She's one of Phasma's favourites, he doesn't have it in him to be cruel right now. "Oh, don't worry. I put the malfunctioning droids in a pile down the hall. We don't have to worry about the fused cards that don't take the override anymore."

Hnung's eyebrows go up, her mouth goes slack, and an officer assigned to RADAR begins a slow clap. Hux casually watches him until he stops, returns his focus to his broken console and appears close to tears.

"What do you think, hmm?" He asks the near-crying officer. "Should we put up an anonymous suggestion box to gather further directives for Ren?"

"I don't know, Sir," the RADAR officer sobs.

Hux nods to himself, satisfied. It won't do to have the staff disrespecting Ren. Only _he_ gets to do that.

. . .

The second planet on Petty Officer Hnung's list hasn't been gotten to by the Resistance yet. Hux is nearly giddy with the prospects and decides to head a team for negotiation purposes himself.

Since XXX-8965 is truly an Outer Rim planet as far as the devastated New Republic is concerned, it is a destitute place full of squat mudbrick buildings for housing, slightly more elegantly taller mudbrick buildings for official use, and a great heap of resources their smaller than average population needs or even particularly wants.

They do, however, desperately need medicines. The New Republic is busy and can't supply them, so they opened a channel for all-comers, and that's how Hnung found them.

The party that comes to greet Hux's transport shuttle are very nice to him and speak through a translator from the Capital. Hux is very nice in turn and hurts the muscles in his face from all the irregular smiling he does. It's all _very nice indeed_.

Phasma is doing the same at the capital city so many leagues North, and they've got ten other semi-trusted officers stationed at ten other locations across the planet following the same script. Provided nothing erroneous happens, this could be the Finalizer's ticket to a station that isn't out in the boonies shooting at drugged-up stupid pirates. 

It takes an hour to hash out the terms for this particular settlement, then Hux produces his own datapad and the leader of the group produces his own, and they begin to sync the documents. The squadron of stormtroopers behind Hux stand silently, waiting for orders.

Hux hands over his datapad for the chief to sign, takes it back with thumbprint in place. A whine overhead heralds a descending Epsilon shuttle, and Hux refuses to look at it, takes the pad from the chief and skims the tiny lettering as quickly as he dares.

"I am not your personal wrecking crew," Ren bellows as he stomps from his personal shuttle. He is suspiciously without his helmet, but otherwise has the entire insane outfit on. "I am not here to be your attack dog. I do not do special requests!"

Hux confirms his biometric signature on the tribal chief's-- or whatever he is, Hux doesn't care-- rustic datapad and hands it back. The Translator gestures at the leader, takes the poor man away from Ren's theatrics and back towards the cluster of his people down the street, watching wearily. Hux waits for them to get a bare three metres away before he makes a "get on with it" motion at the troopers standing off next to a warehouse across the street; they startle at his attention and begin to grab at boxes, hump them back to the transport.

Hux notes that the troopers are moving at a much quicker pace than he expects, then remembers that Ren is stomping up behind him waving a lit lightsabre over his head. He sighs and faces the _child_.

"Can you blame me for trying to find a realistic and--" here he waves a hand at Ren's entire being, "--and _valid_ use for your skills?"

Ren changes from pacing to standing toe-to-toe with Hux. He slowly lifts the lightsabre up to shoulder-level and waggles it menacingly near Hux's head as it crackles.

"My skills in the Dark Side of the Force are innumerable and not for your pithy remarks, General."

Hux quirks at eyebrow, folds his hands at the small of his back. "Oh, back to General are we? What happened to "just the tip"?"

Ren stops his wild arm-motions and stares at him. "What?"

"You really are a virgin, aren't you?"

The lightsabre is powered off and Ren steps back to punt a fist-sized rock at the troopers moving the cargo. The rock beans one right in the back of the head and causes him to fall face first onto a crate.

"It was a Jedi thing! And then I didn't have time! Why do you throw this back in my face every chance you get?" Ren clips his lightsabre back onto his belt and kicks another rock, which the stormtroopers abandon their crates to duck away from.

Hux is getting quite tired of Ren's abuse of resources. He steps around so he's between Ren and the troopers and makes to hiss up into the face of the temperfit _creature_ , "Because you seem to believe that the proper way to court someone you're interested in is to tell the injured object of your affections-- while on a _battlefield_ , mind-- to roll over, you'll heal their gaping wounds with the magical power of your _cock_!"

Ren throws his hands up and sends a volley of rocks straight up into the air. A stormtrooper captain goes "Hup hup hup!" at the troopers moving cargo and they all but stumble in their haste to move faster. Hux twists his neck to check on them, and they appear to be moving in the "Imminent Riot Appearing on Horizon" fashion.

Is it called Protocol Eleven Hundred and Thirteen? He'll have to ask Phasma, he can't recall all the manoeuvres she's implemented since he handed over the programme, the woman is damn near overzealous with them.

Some citizens of the planet are off to the sides of the street and eyeing them warily. They either understand Binary or understand the body language, either way this is not giving a good front for the First Order to these people.

The rocks fall from the sky and clatter against the hardpacked dirt. Not a single one falls on Hux's head, which he expected but appreciates nonetheless.

"Is this what's wrong?" Ren asks, drops his arms, "Are you a prude?" 

Hux sighs. "Are you _daft_?"

"What else do you want me to do?" Ren yells, balls his hands into fists and tries to loom. "I asked for guidance so I wouldn't do anything wrong, I was conscientious--"

Hux sneers. "Oh, ten credit words. Be still my fluttering, gory heart. What's next, poetry?"

"You didn't like the poetry!"

It's Hux's turn to throw his hands up, but he uses them to point at his own head.

"You declared on a public holonet feed that you wanted to blow your load into my hair! Not exactly a love sonnet out of that Jedi Order of yours!"

"I'm not a Jedi!" Ren bellows and stomps his foot. He _actually_ stomps his foot!

Hux drops his hands onto his head and holds on to his hair. "You're an absolute lunatic is what you are!" he bellows right back.

"Do you know how hard it was to go to Snoke with this? He's like a father to me!"

Hux drops his hands and grins meanly. "Don't let him hear you say that, he'll think you're fit to stab him on a crosswalk."

A house three metres away explodes into flames. Hux instinctively covers his head with his arms and turns away from the blast, but Ren stands still as a statue. Clearly, Hux angrily realises, this is Force shenanigans.

The stormtroopers hauling supplies work even faster as civilians flee from the flames while screaming.

Hux stops sheltering himself and tries to straighten the wrists of his coat. He eyeballs Ren from the side.

"Put that out."

Ren sneers at him. "If you think you can command me to do _anything_ \--"

Hux stops fiddling with his clothing and steps close, breathes hot across the other man's face. Screw propriety, he needs Ren to _listen_.

"These people are giving us much needed food _three whole days_ before we starve to death, Lord Ren. If you don't put that out I will personally wait for an opportune moment to _geld you_ , and I daresay the way you covet my arse that this action will be a lifelong punishment you're not prepared to accept."

They glare at each other. Then Ren blinks and his eyes go wide.

"Wait, does that mean you're planning on eventually letting me--"

Hux takes one step back and turns away. "Excuse me, I need to talk to the village leader about reparations."

Hux leaves Ren next to his plume of destruction. As he approaches the cluster of elders who make up this village's leadership, he hears the crackle of the flames whuff out and the stomping of Ren's boots as he kicks out the lingering embers.

. . .

"It was a successful trade agreement, Sir," Hux says to Snoke. He leaves out Ren's destruction of the oldest building in the village. It didn't affect the terms much anyway, just some added regulations about Ren and how is to never come back ever. It's nothing to dwell upon, not for Hux and certainly not for the First Order.

Snoke's head is propped on his hand, elbow resting on one of the arms of his throne. His eyes are at half-mast, his mouth is a flat line.

"Do you have a way to ensure that the Resistance won't sabotage your efforts this time?" Snoke asks, bored and idle in a way that make the hairs at the back of Hux's neck stand up.

Ren hunches in on himself next to Hux, as he seems to do all the bloody time now in these audiences. Hux would ask him about it If he fucking gave a shit.

"No, sir," Hux answers. "However, the First Order will have the supplies it needs to keep going for a while longer. We can rebuild our troops after the major losses occurred on the battlefield." He doesn't mention that the losses sustained were by _other_ military leaders, but it's implied. "This should be enough to regain some much-needed ground, Supreme Leader."

Snoke steeples his fingers and considers Hux in silence. He's been doing that watchful silence thing since the hologram turned on, bar three questions and one lip curl. Except that this is top-notch equipment they have here, Hux would wonder if the frame froze in place.

His injured hip throbs a little from standing at parade rest. Hux tries to shift his weight as imperceptibly as possible and fails when he nearly pitches to the left into Ren.

Snoke drops his hands and leans forward in his throne to loom over the both of them. He points with one hand at Hux's leg.

"I do believe I told you about the benefits of _research_ General."

Hux freezes in place and tries to not think startled rabbit thoughts.

"Sir, I--"

"Do you find what I have to say irrelevant?" Snoke asks. He sits up straight, looks down his nose at Hux. "I, a supreme being with oodles of experience behind me, do not have the wisdom that you might find to be helpful in your time of need?"

"No, sir," Hux says quickly, "Your oodles of experience is absolutely mandatory to all who are in dire need... of... oodles..." he trails off, at a loss.

"Master, if I may give my observation on the General's motivations," Ren says. He uncurls his spine enough to peer up at Snoke, actually looks like a human for the moment instead of some hunched creature struggling to stand upright in human clothing.

"No you may not," Snoke snaps, and down go Ren's shoulder, back into the Dagobah Pill Bug formation with his spine.

Hux realises that for whatever reason, the Supreme Leader is upset with him. He watches Snoke's upper lip curl and realises that he isn't as upset as he should be. Must be the exhaustion. Must be just the sheer bloody sequence of events catching up on him.

Beside him Ren tries to straighten from his hunch again. "But Master," he tries, and Snoke lets out a growl to cut him off. The overlarge child curls right back up, protective stance and chin tilted so far down the helmet is pressing hard against the chest of his robes.

Hux eyes the display and blinks once, slow.

"Kylo Ren," Snoke says, growls the undertone, "Report on your training."

That means Hux is dismissed. He nods respectfully to the hologram of Supreme Leader and does an about face to leave.

He waits until he's alone out in the hall to run his hands over his head and sigh through his teeth.

. . .

Hux and Phasma take their biweekly drinking binge to an empty Officer's Lounge on deck two, as is their wont. Hux is already two to one on Phasma's intake, leaning facedown upon the table they're sitting at and groaning because A) his leg hurts and B) Ren still isn't speaking to him.

Phasma tuts at his despair and places an elegant-fingered hand at the back of his head. This is the only time they bother to practise human-contact, and her choices generally fall in the realm of a comforting, steadying hand rather than hugs. Something Hux likes about her, to be honest.

He _detests_ hugs.

"Why aren't you sleeping with him, by the way?" Phasma asks, smooths down a bit of his hair with her thumb.

"His technique needs work," Hux mumbles into the elegantly polished wood tabletop.

"I have it from a very qualified _sleemo_ informant that taking virginity is all the rage amongst high-ranking military." She breathes out a laugh, it sounds dainty when she's drunk and sans helmet. "I'm just curious as to why it's not drawing you in."

Hux rolls his forehead on the tabletop from side to side, the only way he can shake his head while maintaining his depressed slump.

"He doesn't just want to fuck me, he wants to be in _love_ with me," he groans.

Phasma considers, scritches the back of his head with her blunted nails.

"Is that so bad?" she asks, soft.

Hux keeps his face on the table and finds that he really doesn't have an answer for her.

. . .

For once the Finalizer is in range when the Resistance tries to sabotage a supply shipment. Hux's army descends upon a planet rife with trading outposts and little else, don't come back in a reasonable amount of time, so he goes down to the planet himself next.

It's a big battle, just like the ambush but with less dead bodies on the ground. The Resistance troops are in retreat now but at a heavy cost to Phasma's already diminished divisions. The supplies are safe, though, and Hux fancies the First Order the winner for the first time in a long while.

Hux leaves the site of a skirmish by skirting the edge of a crater made by plasma grenade. He's holding onto his middle again, but the pain is so little this time that it's an absent motion, not at all part of his focus.

Ren is standing near a crashed X-Wing at the other end of the cleared field, apparently yelling at someone inside the cockpit. Hux pays him no mind and stumbles, bloody but exultant, back to the First Order end of things.

A medroid beeps at Hux outside the shuttle preparing to boost wounded back to the Finalizer. He waves it away, then catches Phasma's eye and gestures her over. She's got a limp to match his own now, but is otherwise un-dinged and well-met.

"I need to get this seen to," Hux says, indicates his stomach with his free hand. "You have command of the field. Retrieve every trooper you can, they deserve it after winning a fight like this one."

Phasma salutes, hesitates. Her arm lowers at a much slower speed than it snapped up in.

"Sir, shall I get Lord Ren?" she asks.

Hux raises his eyebrows. Honestly, the slice isn't all that bad this time. But he's feeling fond of her and everyone right now, so he'll indulge her.

"You need him on the field," he tells her as gently as he can manage. Which isn't very, but at least he's trying. "I'll be back at the Finalizer. All end decisions are yours until I retake command."

He stands at attention and salutes her. "Good luck, Captain."

Phasma stands there, obviously stunned, as he turns away and does his best to march up the ramp to the shuttle. He staggers when it levels out to the deck flooring, catches himself on an empty crate that once held medical supplies but now holds discarded weaponry retrieved from dead soldiers.

He hears a shout, and for some odd reason he indulges the impulse to look back. There's Ren, hurrying towards the shuttle, helmet off and his chin streaked with blood. Phasma is gesturing at Hux while facing Ren's direction, the traitor.

The blast doors begin to close. Hux shuffles away from the required yard of clearance for proper atmosphere sealing and nods his head at Mitaka, who is manning the door panel and looking at Hux with watery eyes.

"If I lose consciousness, dump me into a bacta tank as soon as we're on board, Lieutenant."

"Yes, sir," Mitaka says, snaps a crisp salute. Then he frowns at Hux's midsection. "Sir? Do you need a narco-shot to tide you over? Sir?"

Hux ignores the question and leans back against the wall of the shuttle. Something shifts under his hand, but it isn't as slick and wet as it was an hour ago. He wonders where all his blood went. Did he leave it on the planet. Then he wonders if this is the end of the series of injuries, and if not, if Supreme Leader will let him take a few days leave to get his affairs in order before the next one hits.

. . .

It's discomfiting, to say the least, to regain consciousness while still confined to a bacta tank. The tranquilisers must have worn off, Hux thinks. They'll have to put him under again before they can retrieve him from the pool of liquid, bacta shock would happen if they don't.

A hunched dark shape is just outside the transparisteel walls of the tank. Hux's eyes aren't focusing well, he can hardly keep them open as is, but he thinks it might be Ren. And if his ears are working, that's a lewd song Ren's humming.

Must be the drugs, but Hux finds it oddly soothing now that Ren isn't bellowing it about while in a fit. Honestly, why Corellians have ballads about orgies during wedding receptions he'll never know.

Parts of Ren come into focus, and Hux can see a flimsi book in the man's over-large, ungloved hands. His knees are pressed against the exterior of the tank. His head is down, his lower-lip is caught in his teeth, and he keens slightly as he hums.

Hux gives in and closes his eyes again. He very much wishes he could send Ren out before he loses consciousness again. Sitting in that awkward position is going to kill his bloody knees, Dark Side of the Force healing or no.

. . .

Three hours after he is unceremoniously ejected from the bacta tank, fully healed and with a newfound spring to his step, Hux is outside Ren's quarters and using his biometrics on the scanner to permit his entry. He has showered, he has changed into his uniform, and he has jogged up and down the halls outside the Officers quarters to enjoy the new lack of limp.

Now the doors slide open and he steps inside. He enjoys striding into spaces. How could he have forgotten how much he enjoys striding?

The doors close behind him, and he surveys Ren's rooms with no small amount of disgust. They're spartan, dimly lit because no one has changed out the broken bulb in the main room's fixture, and for some reason there's a melted skull on a table covered with dirt set in a shrine-like setting in the recessed corner usually used as a breakfast nook.

Hux notes there are no vats of lube or reams of Bothan laceworks _or_ instruments of destruction, rectal or otherwise, in sight.

The door to the refresher opens and out stumbles Ren, wide-eyed and wet. A towel is wrapped around his waist and he holds another loose to his chest, just like a maiden sacrifice. He comes to a stop a metre from Hux, breathes heavy, darts his focus from Hux to the melted skull across the room and back again.

Hux keeps his face impassive. He suspects he just interrupted a bout of masturbation, if that red glow under the towel is anything to go by.

"You're out?" Ren croaks. He swallows, winces. "You're out of Medical already? But you were--"

"I heal fast," Hux says, quirks an eyebrow. His shoulders are back in parade rest and he bites down on the urge to grin at Ren's glancing gaze at them.

"No you don't," Ren mumbles. He won't make eye-contact, but he can't seem to stop gawping at Hux. "You were limping for weeks the first time through, and you keep hurting the same leg, and--"

"Would you like to tell me why you want to _heal_ me so desperately?" Hux asks, silky sweet and just as vile. He already knows the answer, but he's not about to pass up an opportunity to torture Ren.

Ren shuts his mouth with a snap and harsh click of teeth. Hux drifts a couple steps away from him and pokes at the flimsi scattered across a tabletop. Ren's got his own collection of Ancient Jedi brochures, it seems. And oh, here's some crossed out poetry, how awful.

"We've hated each other before, you know," Hux says, distant as he skims Ren's artistic endeavours. He blinks at the way Ren rhymes the words "tilt" and "hilt," moves on quickly to a different piece of flimsi before it gets worse. "When your incompetence helped in the destruction of my magnum opus, I would have left you to die on that planet if I didn't have orders to save your sorry hide."

Ren's grip on the towel to his chest tightens, makes the muscles in his bare arms flex in a very interesting fashion.

"I would've used the Force to throw you into a lava pit a couple of years ago. Things change."

A couple of _years_? Hux permits himself a small grin. Establishing a timeline of pining and despair is oh so useful. He carefully steps around Ren's boots heaped on the floor and comes to a stop mere inches from Ren's steaming body.

"Hmm, well. I suppose they do," he concedes. Then he hooks one finger in a fold of the towel Ren's got to his chest and tugs it, lightly. "Come on, then. Let's have a look. You've mentioned rathars, so I'm dreadfully curious."

Ren's brow furrows and he releases the towel. It drops to the ground like a vulgar discard. Hux's grin freezes, because he's seen bits and swatches of Ren's definition before, but it's entirely different being faced with the whole picture at once.

"You're injured again?" Ren asks. He looks confused, is checking Hux's stomach, reaching out one hand and stopping just short of prodding Hux in his formerly bad hip.

Hux doesn't give in to instinct and bat his hand away. That is not what he came for, and he will have to _redefine_ said instincts if he is to continue along this vein. So he answers perfunctorily, "Not in the slightest," and relaxes his shoulders under Ren's startled look.

"Then why--?"

Hux tilts his head up sharply, which shuts Ren up. He angles himself so they're almost touching, so Ren's breath is fanning across his face.

"Do you know how courting someone usually occurs?" Hux asks, his voice low and determined.

Ren remains silent. His wobbling swallow is like a blastershot, his pupils are blown so wide they're black holes trying to suck Hux's sanity right on in.

Hux permits himself to feel pleased. He's _been_ pleased. He will remain so, he supposes.

He leans a fraction closer, angles his mouth towards Ren's in an almost kiss.

"Generally," he continues with a smirk, "the two involved in the process aren't in a vicious cycle of pain and are both able to _enjoy_ the experience."

Ren still looks uncertain, but the increasing glow under his remaining towel gives Hux the impression that he's fully on board with whatever Hux is proposing here.

"So--" Ren stops, wets his lips, starts again, "So you're not hurting?"

Hux snags two fingers this time, right where the knot is tied at Ren's hip. He grins, sharp. "Not at all."

Ren tentatively smiles. He looks delighted and also terrified. The light under Ren's towel stops getting brighter, but it does begin to pulse.

Hux looks down at Ren's crotch and sighs.

"I'm going to need glare-visors if I'm to be down there for long."

"What?!" Ren's hands spasm, curl into fists, relax at his sides.

Hux doesn't answer. Instead he drops to his knees and yanks the towel down with him.

**Author's Note:**

>  **Achievement Unlocked! Cocktease:** _Use a plotline about sex without actually writing any!_
> 
> Written for [this prompt on the kinkmeme](http://tfa-kink.dreamwidth.org/3467.html?thread=6934923#cmt6934923).


End file.
